BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


The  Old-Fashioned  Garden  and  Other  Verses 
(out  of  print) 

The  Brandywine 

Illustrated  by  Robert  Shaw $°-5° 

Sivarthmore  Idylls 

Illustrated  by  Robert  Shaw $0.50 

In  a  Brandywine  Harvest  Field $°-25 

Old  Meeting-Houses 

Illustrated $1.00 

In  Memory  of  Whittier 

Illustrated $°-5° 

The  Farm  Calendar 

Illustrated $0.50 

In  preparation: 

Collected  Poems 

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THE  BIDDLE  PRESS 

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Philadelphia 


BRAND YWINE  DAYS 


BRANDYWINE  DAYS 

Or,  The  Shepherd 's  Hour-Glass 
By  JOHN  RUSSELL  HAYES 


Illustrations  by  J.  CARROLL   HAYES 
Frontispiece  by  ROBERT  SHAW 


Philadelphia:  The  Biddle  Press 
London  :   Headley  Brothers 

1910 


Stack 
Annex 


The  author  wishes  to  thank  the  editors 
of  The  Book- Lover,  Book  News  Monthly, 
Everybody' s  Magazine,  Friends'  Intelligencer, 
Lippincot?  s  Magazine  and  The  Pathfinder  for 
kind  permission  to  reprint  certain  of  these  pages 


Copyright  1910 
By  JOHN  RUSSELL  HAYES 


ANNEX 


To 
JAMES  MONAGHAN 


"Alike  ive  lo-ved 

The  muses'  haunts,  and  all  our  fancies  moved 
To  measures  of  old  song  " 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Prologue:   In  Meadows  by  the  Brandywine 10 

JUNE 

Coming  to  the  Farm 11 

Our  Old  Village 14 

The  Brandywine 16 

Beside  this  Twilight  Shore 21 

In  the  Old  Attic 22 

The  Birds  and  the  Poets 25 

Garden  Song  at  Twilight 29 

Starry  Meadows 30 

Sir  William  Temple 32 

Theocritus 35 

The  Brandywine  at  Slumberville 39 

Devonshire  Idyls 41 

Morning  Rain 43 

A  World  of  Green 46 

Among  the  Golden  Wheat 49 

An  Old- World  Poet    .  .52 


JULY 

PAGE 

Nature's  Healing 55 

Book-Hunting  in  London 57 

"Old  Fishing  and  Wishing"      60 

Old  Hills  My  Boyhood  Knew 65 

The  Children • 68 

Old-Time  Eclogues 72 

Oxford's  Idealist 74 

Bion  and  Moschus 78 

One  of  the  Elizabethans 81 

Home  Scenes 86 

The  Charm  of  Flower-Names 88 

Midsummer 92 

Dream-Ships      94 

An  "Exquisite  Sister" 96 

Virgil  of  the  Eclogues 99 

Adown  the  Brandywine 103 

An  Hour  with  Herrick 106 

Silvia 114 

The  Same  Old  Ways 119 

The  Brook 122 

New  Poets  .  124 


AUGUST 

PAGE 

Even-Song      133 

A  Cuyp  Landscape 136 

In  Sir  William  Temple's  Garden 140 

"Sweet  Themmes!    Runne  Softly" 143 

In  Quiet  Waters 144 

After  Harvest 147 

Humphry  Marshall 150 

"Colin  Cloute" 152 

A  Dead  Poet 156 

Cities  of  the  Heart 159 

My  Lady  Slumbers 162 

Country  Peace 165 

Up  Stream      167 

Up  the  Delaware 169 

Below  the  Bridge 174 

The  Dream-River 176 

The  Upper  Brandywine 178 

Threshing  the  Wheat 180 


SEPTEMBER 

PAGE 

Autumnal  Hours 183 

Googe's  Eclogues  Once  More 187 

Spirit  of  September 189 

A  Disciple  of  Keats 192 

Walter  Pater  Again 196 

The  Indian's  Grave      201 

More  of  Vaughan's  Verses 204 

At  Cedarcroft 206 

Old  and  New  Pastoral  Poets 208 

With  Lloyd  Miffin's  Sonnets 212 

The  Old- Fashioned  Garden 213 

The  Gifts  of  God 217 

Autumn  Silence 219 

A  Celtic  Poet 220 

Cecily      225 

The  Sage  of  Marshallton  Again 226 

Farewell  to  the  Farm   .  ...  228 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Opposite  Page 
"Meadows  by  the  Brandywine"  (frontispiece) 

"Pastoral repose  and pensiveness"    .  /-> 

"•The  tiny  town  in  old-world  Oxfordshire"  jc 

"The  garden  in  a  golden  dream"  27 

' ' Peaceful  stream-side  fields "  jO 

"Among  the  peaceful  farms  it  flows"  .  on 

"By  silver  Brandywine' s  Orcadian  stream"  rr 

" Long-loved  oaken  solitudes"  fifi 

"Scores  of  sweet  old-fashioned  blooms"  go 

"A  land  of  peaceful  quietude"      _    ,  JQJ 

The  Home  of  Robert  Herrick   .  206 

"'Tis  here  I  love  to  walk  at  twilight  hour"  _  122 

"Below  the  ancient  grassy  hill  it  flozvs"  t  JJQ 
"The  old  mansion  invites  the  passer-by  to  pause  and  reflect"   ijo 

"  The  woodland  cool  and  still' '  jcjg 

"The  brook  sings  on  with  ceaseless  music"  j6j 

"Small  willows  bend  above"    ...  16? 
' '  Where  curves  the  Brandywine  below  the  bridge' ' 
*'This  green  untroubled  meadow-side" 

"Peace  and  old-time  charm"   .    .  186 

"Thy  deep  charm^  O  how  I  shall  remember"  iqi 

"Leafy  summer  solitudes"    .     .    .  202 

"  The  old  farmstead  wrapt  in  autumn''  s  dream"    .  228 


O    MEMORY,  call  back  the  hours 
Of  childhood's  day  among  the  flowers 
That  grew  in  gardens  sweet  and  old 
Beneath  those  skies  of  misty  gold 
That  made  the  summers  seem  divine 
In  meadows  by  the  Brandywine! 

Call  back  the  breezes  warm  and  sweet 
That  drowsed  across  the  yellow  wheat 
And  made  the  sylvan  valleys  ring 
With  music  light  as  dryads  sing, 
With  music  faint  and  faery-fine, 
In  meadows  by  the  Brandywine! 

Dear  Memory,  call  back  again 
The  soft  and  silver  wraiths  of  rain 
That  bent  the  buttercups,  and  swayed 
The  sleepy  clover-heads,  and  made 
The  hosts  of  dancing  daisies  shine 
In  meadows  by  the  Brandywine! 

Call  back  the  glow-worm's  elfin  fire 
That  wavered  where  the  marshy  choir 
Aiade  reedy  music  ghostly-light 
Across  the  fragrance  of  the  night, 
Till  lucent  stars  began  to  shine 
O'er  meadows  by  the  Brandyiuine! 

0  far,  sweet  hours,  what  strange  regret 
Brings  tears  for  you  tv-night,  while  yet 

1  would  not  have  your  magic  be 
More  than  a  dream — a  dream — to  me, 
A  dream  of  vanished  hours  divine 

In  meadows  by  the  Brandyicine! 


COMING  TO  THE  FARM 


"/  never  list  presume  to  Parnasse  hill, 
But,  pyping  low  in  shade  of  lowly  grove, 
I  play  to  please  myself e,  all  be  it  ill." 

—THE  SHEPHEARDS  CALENDER 

UNE  XV.     Spenser's  lines  must  stand  at  the  head 
of  my  little  Book  of  Hours,  my  Shepherd's  Hour- 
Glass,  for  Spenser  is  held  in  honor  of  all  the  clan 
of  shepherds — Spenser 

"Who   taught   mee    homely,    as    I   can,    to   make." 

And  here  beside  my  ancestral  stream  the  Brandywine,  or 
old  Indian  Wawassan,  as  I  rid  me  of  the  dust  of  clamor 
ous  streets,  on  this  sweet  mid-day  of  June,  and  take  up 
once  again  my  shepherd's  crook  and  rural  quill,  I  thank 
the  dear  God  that  He  still  keeps  green  for  town-wearied 
folk  such  lovely  nooks  as  this.  How  true  are  those  words 
of  Keats, — 

"To  one  who  has  been  long  in  city  pent, 
'Tis  very  sweet  to  look  into  the  fair 
And  open  face  of  heaven, — to  breathe  a  prayer 
Full  in  the  smile  of  the  blue  firmament." 

O  meadows  of  buttercups  and  daisies,  ye  green  old 
willows  and  hillsides  of  fragrant  wheat  and  clover,  and 
thou  beloved  soft-flowing  Brandyw7ine — once  more  we 
come  to  pass  the  summer-tide  amid  your  enchantments. 
Here  in  the  new-old  joys — the  companionship  of  "mine 
own  people,"  the  babble  and  laughter  of  sweet  children, 

[11] 


Brandywine    Days 


music  and  happy  song  and  the  coming  of  gracious  friends, 
quiet  reverie  and  hours  with  the  poets,  beside  our  sylvan 
stream,  in  cool  orchards  and  bird-haunted  groves — the 
weeks  will  flow  by  like  a  dream  of  felicity. 

It  is  the  hour  of  noon ;  we  have  unpacked  our  impedi 
menta  and  have  ranged  on  the  high  little  shelf  over  the  fire 
place  Spenser  and  Herrick,  Wordsworth  and  Keats,  and 
Pater,  and  Fitzgerald's  "Omar,"  the  stout  little  "Corn- 
pleat  Angler"  and  the  other  delightful  volumes.  We  have 
gone  to  the  mossy  spring-house  down  beyond  the  orchard 
and  quaffed  a  drink  divine  from  the  limpid  pool  near  the 
cream  jars  and  the  white  custards  that  are  cooling  for 
our  first  country  dinner.  The  bells  are  ringing  by  the 
old  farm  houses  in  the  valley,  and  the  farm  folk  are  com 
ing  merrily  down  the  hills  to  take  their  nooning. 

Sitting  here  at  the  ample  secretary-desk,  where  my 
forefathers  for  generations  have  written  up  their  farm 
ing  accounts,  and  entered  in  their  journals  the  record  of 
pilgrimings  to  distant  meetings  and  of  the  coming  of  their 
fellow-Quakers  on  perennial  visits — sitting  here  with 
fresh-pointed  quill  (in  reality  only  a  poor  steel  pen!),  and 
musing  on  the  cool,  calm,  old-fashioned  charm  of  this  an 
cient  House  and  idyllic  landscape,  I  indite  in  the  broad 
pages  of  my  diary  the  opening  impressions  of  this  sum 
mer's  sojourn.  Diary,  did  I  say!  forgive  the  word, 
shades  of  my  fathers  in  this  old  Home.  Hour-Glass  let 
me  rather  name  it,  for  old-time's  sake  and  because  a  poet- 
loving  Celtic  friend  of  mine  suggests  the  title ;  and  "Shep 
herd's  Hour-Glass"  for  old  Spenser's  sake.  "Ye  Shep- 
heards  Houre-Glasse"  Spenser  would  have  spelt  it,  in  that 
delightful  century  of  his  when  each  man  spelt  as  pleased 

[12] 


Coming    to    the    Farm 


him  best,  and  before  or-thog-ra-phers  and  such  trouble 
some  folk  were  born. 

Here,  then,  the  lowliest  of  shepherds  records  our  corn 
ing  to  this  antique  Home  by  the  Brandywine. 

So  here  to  this  old  Farmstead  have  we  come, 

A  quaint  red-gabled  solitary  House 

Breathing  of  peace  and  silence  musical, 

Beauty  and  quietude  and  dreamfulness, — 

An  old  ancestral  Home  among  its  fields, 

Its  garden  flowers  and  swaying  orchard  boughs, 

Here  in  the  heart  of  this  still  countryside 

Where  broods  the  atmosphere  of  elder  days, 

Fragrant  of  memories  and  sentiment 

And  happy  friendship.     Here  sleeps  soft  repose, 

A  pastoral  repose  and  pensiveness, 

Virgilian  in  its  dreamy,  tranquil  charm. 

— O  how  my  heart  goes  out  in  happy  thought 

To  this  old  Home  and  all  its  memories, 

Its  golden  past,  its  hallowed  links  that  bind  us 

To  those  dear  souls  gone  with  the  long-dead  years! 


[13] 


OUR  OLD  VILLAGE 


JUNE  XVI 

HN  ancient  mansion  falling  to  decay, 
A  blacksmith's  shop  and  seven  cottages 
Among  their  gardens,  and  one  white  farm  house, 
Make  up  this  hamlet  by  the  Brandy  wine, — 
A  sleepy  village  wrapt  in  drowsy  peace 
And  lazy  silence,  save  when  at  the  forge 
A  horse  is  shod,  making  the  anvil  ring 
With  rhythmic  music ;  or  when  farmers  meet 
Beside  the  watering-trough  and  talk  of  crops, 
The  roads,  the  weather  and  the  price  of  wheat. 
Above  the  village  silently  and  slow 
The  Brandywine  moves  under  sylvan  shades, 
But  at  the  smithy  sweeps  forth  in  the  sun 
And  murmurs  down  a  pebbly  slope,  and  winds 
With  merry  song  below  a  garden  wall. 

Like  to  the  village  Goldsmith  dearly  loved 
It  seems  to  me,  this  hamlet  quaint  and  small, 
Where  Time  stands  still,  and  ancient  usages 
Give  it  an  air  of  peace  and  old-time  charm. 
— And  I  remember  happy  half-hours  here 
Beside  the  blacksmith's  door,  watching  his  fire 
Send  up  its  sparks,  or  listening  to  the  droll 
Converse  of  rustic  humorists  or  the  tales 
Of  mighty  fishing  in  the  Brandywine. 

[14] 


Our  Old  Village 


O  kindly,  unambitious,  homely  hearts, 

'Tis  good  to  come  among  you  once  again 

And  hear  your  friendly  greetings.     Little  change 

The  years  have  wrought  in  your  secluded  homes; 

And  while  the  busy  world  has  hurried  on 

With  restless  energy,  you  are  content 

With  quiet  tasks  and  quiet  country  ways. 

The  silver  Brandywrine  with  lulling  song 

Soothes  all  the  sunny  air,  and  drowsily 

The  locusts  hum  among  your  garden  trees, 

While  from  the  farms  that  hem  your  hamlet  in 

The  ripening  corn  sends  down  its  fragrant  breath; 

And  tranquilly  as  in  the  tiny  town 

Of  old  thatched  roofs  and  gabled  cottages 

Whence  came  my  sires  in  old-world  Oxfordshire, 

Life  slumbers  on  in  your  untroubled  shades. 

— Peace  and  contentment  evermore  abide 

In  your  quaint  hamlet  by  the  Brandywine! 


[15] 


THE  BRANDYWINE 


"Clear  and  gentle  stream! 
Known  and  loved  so  long, 
That  hast  heard  the  song 
And  the  idle  dream 
Of  my  boyish  day." 

UNE  XVII.  Our  beautiful  Brandywine  "with  its 
tributaries  and  enshrining  hills,  the  very  heart 
and  centre  of  old  Chester  County,"  is  most 
widely  known  for  its  association  with  that  fateful  day  in 
1777,  when  Washington  led  his  colonials  across  the  hills 
of  Birmingham,  and  when  Lafayette — last  flower  of  the 
old  French  chivalry — was  wounded  in  battle.  Near  its 
banks  lived  and  wrote  Bayard  Taylor,  who  deeply  loved 
the  "peace  and  blissful  pastoral  seclusion"  of  these  Ches 
ter  County  meadows;  and  here  on  a  summer's  day  Sidney 
Lanier,  meditating  his  lyric  "Clover,"  exclaimed, 

"Dear  uplands,  Chester's  favorable  fields! 
I  lie  as  lies  yon  placid  Brandywine, 
Holding  the  hills  and  heavens  in  my  heart 
For  contemplation." 

A  third  son  of  the  muses,  T.  Buchanan  Read,  drew 
inspiration  from  his  native  stream;  and  there  is  no  Ches- 
ter-countian,  of  any  sentiment  at  all,  who  does  not  cherish 
a  pride  in  the  Revolutionary  memories  of  the  Brandywine, 
and  a  yet  deeper  affection  for  the  stream  for  its  own  fair 
sake  as  being  his  "home  river." 

[16] 


The  Brandywine 


"The  rivers  of  home  are  dear  in  particular  to  all  men," 
wrote  Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  As  one  may  love  the  wind 
ing  Schuylkill,  another  the  Wissahickon's  woodland  pools, 
or  a  third  the  soft  and  faery  beauty  of  the  Susquehanna — 
so  is  the  Brandywine  endeared  to  those  who  have  spent 
endless  summer  days  along  its  green  banks  and  floated 
on  its  placid  reaches ;  and  particularly  so  when  the  bond 
is  the  stronger  by  force  of  ancestral  association  with  some 
old  farmstead  and  willow-bordered  meadow  beside  the 
beautiful  stream. 

"Susqueco,"  one  of  the  musical  names  given  it  by  the 
Indians,  seems  to  ally  it  in  a  measure  to  the  Susquehanna; 
and  the  resemblance  goes  beyond  that  of  the  names,  for 
in  its  lesser  way  our  Chester  County  stream  has  the  same 
alternate  charm  of  tranquil  deeps  and  of  sparkling  rapids 
that  distinguishes  that  loveliest  of  Pennsylvania  rivers. 
Nay,  our  Brandywine  has  a  special  character  of  its  own, 
and  that  is  its  pastoral  or  idyllic  aspect.  Few  are  the 
minor  streams  that  so  completely  satisfy  one's  sense  of 
peaceful  and  untroubled  rural  tranquillity,  or  beside  whose 
calm  waters  he  would  rather  pitch  his  tent  or  read  his 
favorite  poets.  The  grey  old  homesteads  and  venerable 
barns  of  the  Brandywine  valley  seem  an  inseparable  part 
of  the  landscape,  around  which  cluster  the  dear  associa 
tions  and  memories  of  generations.  The  corn  has  sprung 
upon  these  hillsides  and  given  of  its  golden  wealth  through 
countless  Octobers ;  it  seems  almost  as  if  there  could  never 
have  been  a  time  when  the  wheat  did  not  lie  in  abund 
ant  sheaves  on  these  uplands  in  the  silent  midsummer 
nights,  or  the  apples  grow  mellow  and  fall  to  earth  in  the 
long,  drowsy  days  of  September.  It  is  a  region  of  placid 

[17] 


Brandywine  Days 


and  serene  security,  such  a  happy  countryside  as  Virgil, 
immortal  laureate  of  husbandry,  would  have  described 
with  affectionate  art — such  an  opulent  land  as  we  read  of 
in  the  ancient  Odyssey,  where  "pear  upon  pear  waxes  old, 
and  apple  upon  apple — yea,  and  cluster  ripens  upon  clus 
ter  of  the  grape." 

The  very  fishermen  that  haunt  its  shores  seem  to  par 
take  of  the  stream's  lazy  placidity;  it  was  long  ago  de 
spoiled  of  its  finer  fish,  but  still  may  these  patient  anglers 
be  seen,  seated  in  their  favorite  nooks  under  some  droop 
ing  willow  or  white-armed  buttonwood,  where  the  turf  is 
softest,  waiting  through  the  quiet  hours  for  the  nibbles 
that  so  seldom  disturb  their  motionless  corks.  Yet  one 
cannot  call  these  hours  idly  spent,  for  the  true  angler  is 
of  honest  Izaak's  ilk,  and  his  hours  of  serene  contempla 
tion  beget  in  him  a  vein  of  mild  philosophy,  rendering 
him  sweet  of  temper  and  most  companionable.  The  lit 
erary  fisherman  is  perhaps  not  seen  here  so  often,  yet  there 
are  those  who  love  equally  well  to  read  and  to  fish. 

"Sometimes  an  angler  comes  and  drops  his  hook 
Within  its  hidden  depths,  and  'gainst  a  tree 
Leaning  his  rod,  reads  in  some  pleasant  book, 
Forgetting  soon  his  pride  of  fishery; 
And    dreams  or   falls    asleep, 
While  curious  fishes  peep 
About  his  nibbled  bait." 

Flowing  down  through  the  heart  of  Old  Chester 
County,  the  Brandywine  enriches  many  a  secluded  dale 
and  meadow  where  the  quiet  cattle  graze  beside  the  odor 
ous  mint  and  the  nodding  buttercups.  Curve  by  curve 
it  winds  among  the  folded  hills,  silencing  and  receiving 

[18] 


The  Brandywine 


into  its  tranquil  bosom  "the  filtered  tribute  of  the  rough 
woodland"  from  the  thousand  little  brooks  that  purl  and 
babble  down  the  slopes  of  wild  grass  and  crimson  clover. 
Beneath  the  arching  boughs  it  drifts,  home  of  the  squirrel 
and  fox,  and  of  the  wood-robin  that  pours  out  his  solitary 
song  in  cool  sylvan  retreats.  Wild  grapes  hang  over  the 
water,  the  stately  cloud-fleets  sail  slowly  above  and  melt 
away  beyond  the  hill,  and  the  locust  shrills  in  the  loneliness 
of  the  hot  noontide  hour. 

As  the  twilight  hour  draws  on  it  is  pleasant  to  push 
one's  boat  far  from  shore  and  watch  the  closing  of  the  day 
on  the  farms.  Down  from  the  hillside  come  the  shout  of 
the  farmer's  boy  and  the  lowing  of  far  cattle;  and  the 
idler  in  his  boat  knows  that  in  the  old  stone  barns  the 
horses  are  crunching  their  oats  and  hay,  that  the  swal 
lows  are  nested  beneath  the  eaves,  and  the  pigeons  have 
ceased  their  day-long  crooning.  Then,  as  he  rows  slowly 
in  the  sunset  glow,  while  the  boat's  eddies  lap  the  lily- 
pads  and  set  all  the  reeds  to  nodding,  he  will  perhaps 
pass  in  his  musing  fancy  from  these  scenes  to  the  green 
downs  of  England,  where  at  this  hour  the 

"tender  ewes,  brought  home  with  evening  sun, 
Wend  to  their  folds, 
And    to   their   holds 
The  shepherds  trudge  when  light  of  day  is  done." 

After  all,  the  associations  that  cluster  about  a  stream 
make  it  beautiful  to  us  beyond  other  waters ;  if  one's  dear 
est  memories  are  allied  with  the  Delaware,  the  Susquehan- 
na,  or  the  Wissahickon,  that  particular  home-stream  is  to 
him  fairer  than  all  others.  To  Chester  County  folk  our 

[19] 


Brandywine  Days 


sweet  pastoral  Brandywine  must  ever  have  an  especial 
appeal;  there  the  grass  is  softest,  the  plashing  of_the  water 
most  melodious,  and  there  the  twilight  grieving  of  the 
ring-dove  most  touches  the  heart.  For  us  these  remem 
bered  hills  are  clothed  with  beauty,  and  these  misty  woods 
with  enchantment.  Something  of  ancestral  feeling  awakes 
as  the  thought  of  peaceful  townships  with  their  names 
that  carry  us  back  to  the  old  hills  and  valleys  of  England 
and  Wales ; 

"Tredyffrin,  Cain  and  Nantmeal  hold 
Traditions  of  those  sires  of  old ; 
While  Uwchlan  in  her  inmost  vale 
May  hear  at  eve  some   Cambrian  tale." 

Truly,  we  bless  the  tranquil  serenity  of  the  grey 
homesteads  about  which  the  memories  of  our  fathers  are 
yet  green ! 

"Old  homes !  old  hearts !    Upon  my  soul  forever 
Their  peace  and  gladness  lie  like  tears  and  laughter; 
Like  love  they  touch  me,  through  the  years  that  sever, 
With  simple  faith;  like  friendship,  draw  me  after 
The  dream}-  patience  that  is  theirs  forever." 


[20] 


BESIDE  THIS  TWILIGHT  SHORE 

JUNE  XVIII 

I  WILL  not  ask  for  more, — 
Only  one  love-song  sorrowful  and  golden 
Beside  this  twilight  shore, 
Sweet  as  Ulysses  heard  in  legends  olden, — 
I  will  not  ask  for  more  ; 

Beside  this  twilight  shore 

One  love-song  with  its  pathos  sweet  and  olden, — 
I  will  not  ask  for  more, — 

Yearning  with  sorrows  and  with  memories  golden 
Beside  this  twilight  shore. 


[21] 


IN  THE  OLD  ATTIC 


tf'UNE  XIX.  We  awake  this  morning  to  country 
(i  A-  sunshine  and  joyance;  the  blackbirds  chatter  in 
the  tall  maples,  and  from  its  home  in  the  wood 
land  edge  the  ring-dove  is  softly  pleading.  The  long- 
silent  old  House  is  sad  only  in  memory  now,  for  its  halls 
are  vocal  with  the  song  of  children,  merry,  merry  children, 

"Crazy  with   laughter   and  babble   and  earth's  new  wine." 

The  tender  melancholy  of  the  ring-dove's  note  seems 
veritably  a  token  of  the  sentiment  of  the  old  House  in 
these  bright  June  hours,  a  "pensive  recollection"  mingling 
with  its  present  blithe  music.  Through  all  the  months 
between  our  summers  here,  the  ancient  Homestead  dreams 
in  solitude.  The  tall  colonial  clock  ticks  not,  but  stands 
mournful  in  its  shadowy  corner;  the  midnight  mouse  plays 
on  the  moonlit  garret  floor;  and  the  quaint  harpsichord 
stands  silent  and  immelodious,  a  memorial  of  some  an 
cestral  "gentlewoman  of  the  old  school"  who  held  not  so 
strictly  to  the  Quaker  rule  that  she  must  shut  music  out 
of  her  sweet  life. 

"I  know   she  played   and   sang,   for  yet 
We  keep  the  tumble-down  spinet 
To  which   she  quavered  ballads   set 
By  Arne  or  Jackson." 

In  those  long  still  months  of  autumn  and  winter  the 
shuttered  windows  reflect  no  sunset  skies,  and  the  moan 
ing  winds  pile  with  their  store  of  faded  leaves  the  deep 
doorways  and  the  flag-paven  porches.  The  great  pine  and 

[22] 


In  the  Old  Attic 


the  maples  sway  about  the  red  chimneys,  strewing  the 
ground  with  ruined  nests;  November  rains  drip,  drip 
sadly  upon  the  mossy  shingles ;  and  the  snows  whiten  roof 
and  lawn  and  deserted  Garden  with  their  noiseless  drift, 
across  which  the  shy  tree-dwellers  leave  their  tiny  foot 
prints  unseen  save  of  the  lonely  old  House.  Naught  but 
the  venerable  Mansion  is  witness  of  those  shifting  sea 
sons  or  listener  to  the  wild  harmonies  of  the  December 
storms. 

But  now  the  dream-year  has  ebbed  away,  and  awaken 
ing  June  fills  the  once-quiet  halls  with  its  flood  of  soft 
light,  its 

"Sunshine    beating    in    upon    the    floor 
Like   golden    rain," — 

and  its  enchantments  of  echoed  bird-song  and  joyous  child- 
life. 

Already  the  little  folk — Brown-eyes  and  Ray  and  pen 
sive  Bunny  and  romping  Will — have  clambered  to  the 
old  attic,  that  dreamland  of  childish  hearts.  Among  its 
lumber  of  venerable  furniture  and  hair  trunks  and  anti 
quated  finery  they  are  making  merry.  How  the  garret 
ghosts  must  ache  to  be  thus  rudely  encroached  upon,  and 
the  mice  scamper  to  their  inmost  holes  below  the  rafters! 
The  dear  little  folk  are  looking  up  with  wonder  at  the 
strings  of  lavender  and  herbs  that  fill  the  dim  attic  with 
faint  aromas;  and  now  I  hear  the  quaint  lacquered  spinet 
quavering  in  high  and  sorry  tones  under  the  touch  of  cu 
rious  small  fingers.  Those  'melancholy  and  mournful 
echoes  of  airs  long  forgotten,  and  the  soft  fragrance  of  the 
dried  lavender,  rouse  thoughts  fainter  even  than  memories 

[23] 


Brandywine  Days 


or  dreams — of  the  far-off  days  when  the  antique  harpsi 
chord  stood  in  its  pride  in  the  ample  drawing-room,  and 
the  youths  and  maidens  of  the  hamlet,  prim  and  sedate  in 
their  flowered  silks  and  other  dainty  apparel,  passed  from 
singing  part-songs  around  the  little  instrument  to  stroll 
among  the  lavender  beds  and  the  "laylock"  and  hollyhock 
corridors  of  the  glowing  Garden. 

Ah,  bonny  children,  you  have  started  a  pleasant  vein 
of  reverie  for  me  this  day,  with  your  romping  up  beneath 
the  eaves.  It  is  in  such  hours,  amid  musings  like  these, 
and  looking  out  upon  so  fair  a  landscape,  that  one  has  some 
glimpse  of  the  abiding  truth  of  things.  It  was  William 
W.  Story,  I  think,  who  wrote, 


"Ah  Heaven !  we  know  so  much  who  nothing  know ! 
Only  to  children  and  in  poets'  ears, 
At  whom  the  wise  world  wondering  smiles  and  sneers, 
Secrets  of  God  are  whispered  here  below. 
Only  to  them,  and  those  whose  gentle  heart 
Is  opened  wide  to  list  for  Beauty's  call, 
Will  Nature  lean  to  whisper  the  least  part 
Of  that  great  mystery  which  circles  all." 


[24] 


THE  BIRDS  AND  THE  POETS 

"In  this  sequester'd  nook  how  sweet 
To  sit  upon  my  orchard-seat! 
And  flowers  and  birds  once  more  to  greet, 
My  last  year's  friends  together." 

" — I'UNE  XX.  This  blithe  morning  the  finches  and 
^  A-  red-breasts  are  chirruping,  the  yellow  orioles  flash 
in  and  out  among  the  green  orchard  boughs,  and 
from  the  far  wood  edge  come  the  pensive  notes  of  the 
ring-dove.  Ah,  that  plaintive  call  of  the  ring-dove! — no 
sound  in  this  Brandywine  valley  rings  so  vividly  in  the  ear 
of  memory  as  that  solemn  sweet  call  across  the  fields 
through  all  the  long  drowsy  dreamy  summer  days  and  on 
into  the  enchanted  twilight. 

Ah,  gentle  mourner,  what  soft  pain  is  thine, 
What  tender  melancholy  stirs  thy  breast  ? 
Perchance  some  old  romantic  sorrow  lies 
About  thy  heart,  or  memory  of  wrong 
Done  to  thy  kind  long  since  in  some  green  vale 
Of  dim  Thessalian  woods.    Thy  pensive  note 
No  elegy  can  match,  and  thy  sweet  woe 
Makes  memorable  the  sacred  twilight  hour. 
So  ran  my  thought,  in  my  love  for  this  sorrowing  and 
mystic  singer;  but,  as  Alice  Brown  has  asked,  who  may 

"translate  the  desolation  of  the  dove? 
For  even  in  the  common  speech 
Of  feathered   fellows,  each  to  each, 
Abideth    still   the   primal    mystery, 
The  brooding  past,  the  germ  of  life  to  be." 

[25] 


Erandywine  Days 


Countless  are  the  tiny  carollers  among  the  leaves  in 
these  primal  days  of  summer.  Now,  and  through  the 
months  to  come,  their  gushing  music  will  echo  around  us, 
an  inseparable  and  supernal  accompaniment  to  all  God's 
wild  beauty. 

How  the  songs  of  birds  have  filled  the  ears  of  the 
dreamers  in  every  age !  Our  English  poesy  is  forever  mel 
odious  with  the  choirs  of  the  air.  I  open  a  favorite  an 
thology,  and  the  first  poem,  written  a  century  before 
Chaucer,  begins  thus  jubilantly, 

"Sumer   is   icumen   in, 
Lhude  sing  cuccu!" 

And  the  latest  magazine  has,  from  the  pen  of  John 
Burroughs — who  is  cheering  his  latter  days  with  one  bird- 
poem  after  another — a  lyric  on  the  bush  sparrow;  the  tiny 
caitiff  purloins  my  grapes,  sighs  the  old  bird-lover,  but 

"Still   I  bid   him  welcome, 

The  pilf'ring  little  dear; 
He  pays  me  off  in  music, 
And  pays  me  every  year." 

So  we  hear  the  birds  warbling  through  all  the  pages 
of  English  verse  from  first  to  last.  Milton  gives  us  his 
favorite  nightingale,  Sorrow's  own  singer, 

"Most  musical,   most   melancholy;" — 

and  the  same  wondrous  bird  has  been  enshrined  forever  by 
Keats  in  the  deep  Celtic  pathos  of  that  ode  written  be 
neath  the  trees,  of  a  May  morning,  wThile  the  young  poet 

[26] 


The  Birds  and  the  Poets 

yet  thrilled  with  the  recollection  of  Philomela's  midnight 
music. 

"Thou  wast  not  born  for  death,  immortal  Bird ! 

No  hungry  generations  tread  thee  down ; 
The  voice  I  hear  this  passing  night  was  heard 

In  ancient  days  by  emperor  and  clown : 
Perhaps  the  self-same  song  that  found  a  path 

Through  the  sad  heart  of  Ruth,  when,  sick  for  home, 
She  stood  in  tears  amid  the  alien  corn ; 

The  same  that  oft-times  hath 
Charm'd  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of   perilous  seas,  in  faery   lands   forlorn." 

The  skylark,  beloved  alike  of  Shakespeare  and  Shelley, 
chants  his  dewy  matins  at  the  golden  gate  of  heaven — 
unforgetably — for  if  the  skylark  should  unhappily  disap 
pear  from  earth,  he  would  still  live  for  all  time  in  Cymbe- 
line  and  the  Sonnets,  in  many  a  line  of  Wordsworth,  and 
in  the  throbbing  stanzas  of  that  almost  last,  surely  most 
perfect,  of  Shelley's  lyrics: 

"All  that  ever  was 
Joyous,  and  clear,  and  fresh,  thy  music  doth  surpass." 

If  our  American  songsters  have  not  received  their 
meed  of  praise  from  classic  poets,  they  have  had  very  beau 
tiful  celebration  from  some  of  our  latter-day  bards.  The 
vireo,  the  mocking-bird,  the  meadow  lark,  the  yellow-breast 
and  the  thrush,  deserve  the  noblest  words  of  Sidney  Lanier, 
Celia  Thaxter,  Henry  van  Dyke,  J.  Russell  Taylor  and 
the  others.  The  last-named  poet  portrays  very  intimately 
the  inner  melody  of  some  of  our  homeland  songsters.  I 
know  of  no  finer  American  laureate  of  the  birds.  Witness 
this  lyric, — 

[27] 


Erandywine  Days 


:'Blow   softly,   thrush,   upon   the   hush 
That  makes  the  least  leaf  loud, 
Blow,  wild  of  heart,  remote,  apart 
From  all  the  vocal  crowd, 
Apart,  remote,  a  spirit  note 
That  dances  meltingly  afloat, 
Blow   faintly,   thrush ! 
O  lightly  blow  the  ancient  woe, 
Flute  of  the   wood,  blow   clearly! 
Blow,  she  is  here,  and  the  world  all  dear, 
Melting  flute  of  the   hush, 
Old  sorrow  estranged,  enriched,  sea-changed, 
Breathe   it,   veery-thrush !" 


[28] 


GARDEN  SONG  AT  TWILIGHT 

JUNE  XXI 

HE  sunset's  golden  flush,  as  daylight  closes, 
Wraps  all  the  garden  in  a  golden  dream, 

The  while  you  sit,  dear  heart,  among  the  roses, 
And  watch  the  sleepy  stream. 

The  marigold  droops  low,  the  poppy  dozes, 
The  lotus  slumbers  in  a  golden  dream, 

And  your  own  queenly  head  among  the  roses 
Bends  toward  the  sleepy  stream. 

Now  let  my  lute  with  music's  heavenly  closes 
Mingle  its  magic  with  your  golden  dream, 

Until  the  moon's  soft  fire  above  the  roses 
Silvers  the  sleepy  stream. 

Dream  on,  dear  love,  while  every  flower-heart  dozes, 
Let  all  your  soul  dissolve  in  golden  dream; 

And  I  will  guard  my  saint  among  the  roses 
Beside  the  sleepy  stream. 


[29] 


STARRY  MEADOWS 


"The  phantom  flood  of  dreams  has  ebbed 

and  vanished  with  the  dark, 
And  like  a  dove  the  heart  forsakes 

the  prison  of  the  ark; 
Now  forth  she  fares  through  friendly  woods 

and   diamond- fields   of  dew, 
While  every  voice  cries  out  'Rejoice!' 

as  if  the  world  were  new." 

UNE  XXII.  Faery  cloudlets  hover  and  float  above 
us  this  fresh  green  June  day,  the  wood  pigeon 
renews  her  sorrowing  plaint,  cat-birds  chatter 
among  the  wild  raspberry  bushes,  and  in  the  gurgling  of 
the  song-sparrow  I  hear  voices  of  the  long  ago — the 
song-sparrow,  the  blithe  little  friend  to  whom  Celia 
Thaxter  wrrote  affectionate  greeting, 

"My  little  helper,  ah,  my  comrade  sweet, 

My  old  companion  in  that  far-off  time 
When  on  life's  threshold  childhood's  winged  feet 

Danced  in  the  sunrise!     Joy  was  at  its  prime 
When  all  my  heart  responded  to  thy  song 
Unconscious  of  earth's  discords  harsh  and  strong." 

The  poppies  float  on  the  billowing  acres  of  wheat  like 
crimson  foam  on  that  yellow  tide,  the  grass  stands  lush  and 
deep  on  the  long  slopes  of  the  hillsides,  and  the  meadows 
are  starred  with  gem-like  bells  and  florets  of  brilliant  hues. 
Delicate  white  and  pink  and  golden,  these  flowers  are  like 
those  which  Botticelli  strewed  with  winsome  art  over  the 

[30] 


Starry  Meadows 


fragrant  turf  in  his  strangely  fascinating  "Spring" — or 
like  those  in  the  foregrounds  that  Fra  Angelico  rejoiced 
to  paint  into  the  little  panels  that  enrich  the  walls  of  the 
mediaeval  cells  in  San  Marco. 

These  blooms  of  ours  fade  away  with  the  fading  sum 
mer.  Not  so  those  pictured  flowers;  they  bloom  with  an 
immortality  of  ineffable  beauty  on  the  monastery  walls. 
And  what  happiness,  one  must  think,  for  the  holy  breth 
ren  amid  their  fasts  and  absolutions,  their  observance  of 
matins  and  complines,  to  return  from  the  spirit-world  of 
adoration  to  those  radiant  pictures  of  sweet  Tuscan  river- 
meadows  set  about  the  white  feet  of  angels!  And  Sav 
onarola  himself,  in  that  quaint  Roman  seat  of  his  that 
stands  yet  in  his  severe  cell, — were  his  dreams  not  height 
ened  and  his  heart  touched  by  those  fragments  of  idealized 
earthly  loveliness  which  Angelico  had  placed  in  everlast 
ing  brightness  in  that  grey  home  of  prayer ! 

And  those  Pre-Raphaelite  starry  meadows  found  a  late 
reincarnation  when  Edward  Burne-Jones — truly  a  mod 
ern  holy  brother  in  gentleness  and  spiritual  vision — and 
his  friend  the  fine-souled  Morris,  created  the  fair  work 
of  their  combined  arts  of  design  and  loom-weaving,  the 
tapestry  with  which  they  made  more  beautiful  the  fra 
grant  chapel  of  their  own  Exeter  College. 

Yes,  in  these  very  fields  about  us  here  by  the  Brandy- 
wine  I  may  live  again  in  imagination  and  memory  those 
rare  hours  in  the  Florentine  shrine  and  in  the  Oxford  sanc 
tuary  beneath  the  centuried  windows  of  the  silent  Bod 
leian  Library. 


[31] 


SIR  WILLIAM  TEMPLE 


Sir  William  loved  his  life  of  lettered  ease 
Among  the  shadows  of  his  Surrey  trees, 
Among  his  gardens  and  his  books  and  bees ; — 
I  love  his  memory  that  he  loved  all  these. 

*  tf'UNE  XXIII.  To  go  down  into  green  Surrey  to 
HlA-  Farnham,  sleepy  old  town  on  the  pastoral  Wey, 
and  out  to  Moor  Park  and  its  old-world  felic 
ities,  is  to  gain  an  abiding  interest  in  one  of  England's 
finest  types  of  old-time  country  gentleman.  Further,  if 
it  be  one's  fortune,  as  it  was  mine,  to  find  on  a  bookstall 
the  four  leather-clad  octavos  entitled  The  Works  of  Sir 
William  Temple,  Bart.,  with  Lely's  handsome  portrait 
of  the  author,  and  printed  in  London  in  1757,  by  Lintot, 
Tonson,  and  others  of  those  rubicund  booksellers  of  Pope's 
acquaintance, — his  happiness  will  be  complete.  Some 
pleasant  hours  have  I  spent  over  these  Works  beside  the 
Brandywine,  only  a  few  miles  up-stream  from  the  farms 
and  gardens  where  Sir  William's  American  descendants 
still  live.  In  this  region  of  "blissful  pastoral  seclusion," 
as  Bayard  Taylor  called  his  home-land,  it  seems  fitting  to 
say  something  of  our  noble  author  and  his  devotion  to  the 
country  life. 

I  take  it  that  your  true  book-lover  extends  his  affection 
very  easily  to  old  red-brick  country  mansions,  to  fragrant 
box  hedges  and  old-fashioned  flowers ;  he  holds  dear  the 
very  locusts  that  hum  so  drowsily  in  warm  August  noons, 
the  sigh  of  the  light  summer  wind  among  the  beeches 

[32] 


Sir  W^illiam  'Temple 


and  soft  evergreens,  the  red  cherry  leaves  drifting  across 
the  orchard  grass.  He  need  only  look  into  his  heart,  in 
order  to  write,  with  Cowley, 

"Ah,  yet,  ere  I  descend  to  the  Grave, 
May  I  a  small  House  and  large  Garden  have, 
And  a  few  Friends,  and  many  Books,  both  true, 
Both  wise,  and  both  delightful,  too!" 

To  come  upon  Sir  William  Temple's  essay,  "Of  Gar 
dening,"  is  like  finding  pale  rose-petals  between  the  pages 
of  some  cherished  volume.  This  "sweet  garden  essay," 
as  Charles  Lamb  termed  it,  recalls  half-forgotten  days  of 
long  ago  in  our  grandmothers'  gardens;  the  songs  of  child 
hood,  the  spicy  pinks  beside  the  wall,  the  old  formal  por 
traits  in  the  "best  room" — such  memories  awake  at  the 
opening  of  one  of  these  old  books.  And  in  our  author's 
stately  discourse,  "Of  Health  and  Long  Life,"  I  hear  once 
again  the  staid  Quakers — Temples  and  others — who  around 
the  "First-day"  dinner  exchanged  advice  on  this  same  vital 
theme,  seasoning  their  homely  recipes  with  a  certain  flavor 
of  old-time  speech.  To  the  boy  beside  them  their  words 
seemed  formal  and  perhaps  lacking  in  humor ;  but  his  read 
ing  in  sundry  journals  and  epistles  of  seventeenth-century 
Quakers  has  since  convinced  him  that  those  grave  but 
cheery  country  folk  spoke  and  wrote  a  diction  that  has 
come  straight  from  the  days  of  Penn  and  Temple,  a  dic 
tion  that  is  charming  for  its  unfailing  dignity,  mingled 
with  affectionate  friendliness.  Almost  can  I  hear  again 
the  old,  broad-brimmed,  drab-coated  J —  -  W—  —  of  my 
boyish  reverence  as  I  read  Sir  William  Temple's  opening 
observation  on  Health: 

[33] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


"Peace  is  a  public  blessing,  without  which  no  man  is  safe 
in  his  fortunes,  his  liberty,  or  his  life.  .  .  .  Health  is  the 
soul  that  animates  all  enjoyments  of  life,  which  fade  and  are 
tasteless,  if  not  dead,  without  it." 

Very  cheery  and  affable  a  host  and  table  companion 
was  good  Sir  William,  delighting  in  making  those  about 
him  happy  and  easy;  very  skilful  in  avoiding  disputes 
and  in  turning  his  conversation,  as  his  sister  avers,  "to 
what  was  more  easy  and  pleasant,  especially  at  table, 
where,  he  said,  ill  humour  ought  never  to  come,  and  his 
agreeable  talk  at  it,  if  it  had  been  set  down,  would  have 
been  very  entertaining  to  the  reader,  as  well  as  it  was  to 
so  many  that  heard  it.  He  had  a  very  familiar  way  of 
conversing  with  all  sorts  of  people,  from  the  greatest 
princes  to  the  meanest  servants,  and  even  children,  whose 
imperfect  language  and  natural  and  innocent  talk  he  was 
fond  of,  and  made  entertainment  out  of  everything  that 
could  afford  it." 

Such  pictures  rise  as  I  turn  the  pages  of  these  old  vol 
umes  of  Temple's  Works  here  by  the  Brandywine;  and  I 
am  happy  in  believing  that  such  a  type  of  conservative, 
affable,  friendly,  democratic  country  gentleman  is  not  a 
lost  type,  and  that  in  some  of  these  long-settled  families 
among  the  ancient  farms  up  and  down  the  stream  these 
noble  characteristics  still  survive. 


[34] 


THEOCRITUS 


O  Singer  of  the  field  and  fold, 
Theocritus!  Pan's  pipe  was  thine, — 
Thine  was  the  happier  Age  of  Gold. 

For  thee  the  scent  of  new-turned  ?nould, 
The  bee-hives,  and  the  murmuring  pine, 
O  Singer  of  the  field  and  fold!" 

UNE  XXIV.  Professor  Palgrave  once  said  that 
Keats'  Ode  to  Autumn  is  such  a  poem  as  Theoc 
ritus  might  have  delighted  to  compose;  and  in 
deed  the  lovely  realism  of  Keats'  perfect  pastoral  is  in 
the  best  mode  of  the  earlier  singer,  with  its  impassioned 
vision  of  Autumn's  goddess  drowsing  beside  the  half- 
reaped  furrow  among  twined  flowers,  or  dreamily  musing 
by  the  dripping  cider-press,  while  all  about  are  laden  vines 
and  apples  blushing  red,  sweet  nuts  and  unending  wealth 
of  September's  golden  flowers.  With  soft  adagio  of  insect- 
swarms,  bleat  of  sheep  and  twitter  of  homing  swallows, 
the  poem  dies  down  like  the  close  of  some  enchanting 
melody.  Truly,  Theocritus  himself  could  not  have  re 
ported  the  pensive  hours  of  early  autumn  in  southern 
England  more  faithfully,  more  tenderly! 

Conversely,  we  may  well  imagine  with  what  exquisite 
report  Keats  might  have  immortalized  afresh — could  he 
have  visited  Sicily — that  land  of  ilex  and  iris,  of  mossy 
fountains  and  vineyards  ages  old,  of  wild  roses  and 
galingale  and  sleepy  poppies,  where  the  yellow  spurge 

[35] 


Erandywine  Days 


blooms  in  the  lava  rifts  and  the  broken  columns  of  antique 
temples  are  festooned  with  rose-vines, — that  land  where 
amid  the  countryside  simplicity  every  shepherd  is  a  natural 
poet  and  Daphnis  and  Lycidas  still  pipe  on  rustic  flutes 
beside  their  straggling  flocks. 

From  Keats  back  through  Browne  of  Tavistock, 
Spenser,  and  Lincolnshire's  delightful  Barnabe  Googe,  we 
might  trace  the  slender  silver  stream  of  English  pastoral 
lyric  to  its  fountain-head  in  the  eclogues  of  Virgil  and 
his  master  Theocritus.  Beyond  the  Sicilian  we  should  deal 
with  his  teacher  Philetas  of  Cos  and  with  those  idyllic 
poets  of  the  Linus-song  that  pass  vaguely  across  one  page 
of  the  Iliad.  But  for  us  the  earliest  pastoral  verse  is  the 
verse  of  Theocritus,  in  some  ten  of  those  thirty  idyls  or 
"little  pictures"  that  bear  his  beautiful  name.  "Who  will 
open  his  doors,"  he  asks,  "and  receive  our  Graces  to  his 
home?"  Have  not  all  the  spiritual  kinsfolk  of  the  beloved 
Sicilian,  from  Virgil  to  Keats  and  Tennyson,  received 
those  Graces  right  warmly,  loved  and  cherished  them,  and 
set  them  up  as  dear  patron  deities  over  the  exquisite  strains 
of  the  pastoral  flute  through  all  the  ages? 

"Oh,  easy  access  to  the  hearer's  grace 
When  Dorian  shepherds  sang  to  Proserpine ! 

For  she  herself  had  trod  Sicilian  fields, 
She  knew  the  Dorian  water's  gush  divine, 

She  knew  each  lily  white  which  Enna  yields, 

Each  rose  with  blushing  face; 
She  loved  the  Dorian  pipe,  the  Dorian  strain." 

Where  breathe  the  Dorian  pipe,  the  Dorian  strain, 
more  authentically  than  in  that  most  ancient  lament  of 
Thyrsi's  for  Daphnis  the  dead  shepherd,  composed  in  that 

[36] 


Theocritus 

soft  later  Doric  dialect  whereby  Theocritus  so  faithfully 
reproduces  the  rural  patois  of  his  simple  and  friendly  peas 
ant  folk  ?  Like  the  sweet  whispering  of  a  pine-tree  by  a 
well  of  living  water  are  the  pipings  of  his  mate  the  goat 
herd,  surpassed  by  Pan  alone, — so  avows  Thyrsis.  In  re 
turn,  the  goatherd  likens  the  song  of  Thyrsis  to  the  mel 
ody  of  streams  that  fall  forever  from  the  cliff.  So,  be 
neath  elm  shadows  and  beside  the  homely  wooden  images 
of  the  gods  of  field  and  garden,  these  rustics  ply  their  syl 
van  minstrelsy.  The  prize — a  fair,  two-handled  drinking- 
cup — is  portrayed  with  loving  elaboration:  a  deep  new- 
carven  cup,  engarlanded  with  ivy-twine  about  its  brim, 
with  honeysuckle  and  saffron  fruitage.  Engraved  thereon 
standeth  a  damsel  dreamy-sweet,  round  whom  contend 
her  fair-haired  lovers.  On  another  panel  of  the  cup  is 
carved  an  old  fisherman,  stoutly  dragging  his  casting- 
net.  Hard  by,  a  lad  looks  upon  two  foxes  that  rob  a 
vineyard ;  he  is  plaiting  a  seemly  cricket-trap,  this  lad, 
from  corn  and  rushes,  joyously  working  at  the  soft  wicker 
mesh.  Lissom  briar  entwines  the  goodly  cup;  the  prize 
has  cost  the  goatherd  a  great  white  cheese ;  and  all  its  vir 
gin  beauty  shall  belong  to  Thyrsis,  if  he  will  but  chant  his 
master-song,  the  Death  of  Daphnis. 

Whereupon  the  shepherd  invokes  the  muses  of  bucolic 
elegy, — "Begin,  sweet  Maids,  begin  the  sylvan  song!" — 
and  then  he  chants  of  Daphnis, — Daphnis  who  now  adown 
the  mournful  stream  of  forgetfulness  hath  gone  forever, — 
Daphnis,  dear  to  the  deathless  Muses, — Daphnis,  whom 
Aphrodite,  heavy  of  heart,  lamented, — Daphnis,  who  nev 
ermore  by  glen  or  glade  or  woodland  green  shall  roam 
as  of  old,  a  joy  to  every  creature  of  the  field. 

[37] 


Brandy  wine  Day. 


Thus  soundeth  the  Death-song  of  Daphnis,  prototype 
of  every  noble  threnody  of  later  ages.  From  that  simple 
but  highly  artistic  poem  of  the  Sicilian  shepherd-muse 
have  come  the  inspiration  and  imagery  of  our  great  Eng 
lish  elegies.  The  wailing  grief,  the  yearning  iteration  of 
the  dead  shepherd's  name,  find  echo  in  Spenser's  lament 
for  Sidney, 

"Young  Astrophel,  the  pride  of  shepherds  praise, 
Young  Astrophel,  the  rusticke  lasses  love ; 
Far  passing  all  the  pastors  of  his  dales." 

They  echo  immortally  in  the  melancholy  verses  of  the 
uncouth  swain  who  sang  to  the  oaks  and  rills  his  grief  for 
Lycidas, 

"dead  ere  his  prime, 
Young  Lycidas,  and  hath  not  left  his  peer." 

And  how  Shelley  touched  the  Dorian  flute,  like  a  sec 
ond  Theocritus,  in  those  unforgetable  opening  lines! — 

"I  weep  for  Adonais — he  is  dead ! 
Oh  weep  for  Adonais!  tho'  our  tears 
Thaw  not  the  frost  which  binds  so  dear  a  head ! 
Oh  weep  for  Adonais — he  is  dead! 
Wake,   melancholy  Mother,  wake   and  weep !" 


[38] 


THE  BRAND YWINE  AT  SLUMBER VILLE 

JUNE  XXV 

"DOWN  the  dales  of  green  Newlin, 
Among  the  peaceful  farms  it  flows, 
And  soft  and  dreamy  is  the  song 
It  chants  and  murmurs  as  it  goes 
Beside  the  woodland  cool  and  still, 
The  Brandywine  at  Slumberville. 

Where  blow  the  freshening  winds  of  June 

Across  the  green  and  silver  oats, 
And  in  the  fragrant  clover  fields 

The  robins  trill  their  faery  notes, 
It  drifts  below  the  emerald  hill 
That  guards  old  drowsy  Slumberville. 

Its  clear  green  waters  softly  sing 

Among  the  green  and  waving  reeds, 

They  softly  sing  among  the  stems 
Of  green  and  crimson  water-weeds, 

They  softly  sing  beside  the  mill 

And  dark  mill-race  at  Slumberville. 

By  daisied  meadows  deep  and  sweet 

Where  tranquil  cattle  dream  and  dream, 

Our  little  river  rambles  on 

Full-fed  by  many  a  tribute  stream; 

O  how  its  gleam  and  beauty  fill 

My  vision  of  old  Slumberville ! 

[39] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


By  homes  where  honest  folk  and  true 
Have  lived   for  generations  long 

Among  their  golden  gardens  old, 
It  wanders  down  with  sleepy  song, 

By  smithy  and  by  rumbling  mill, 

The  Brandywine  at  Slumberville. 

I  hear  its  music  faery-sweet 

Beneath  the  silver  stars  of  June, 

I  hear  its  melancholy  voice 

Beneath  the  yellow  harvest  moon 

Grieving  that  autumn  frosts  must  fill 

The  golden  dales  of  Slumberville. 

O  never  comes  to  me  the  song 
Of  thrushes  in  the  poppied  wheat, 

Or  under  shadowy  orchard  boughs 
The  ring  of  childish  laughter  sweet, 

But  thy  rich  music  haunts  me  still, 

O  Brandywine  at  Slumberville! 


[40] 


DEVONSHIRE  IDYLS 


UNE  XXVI.  "In  Tamar's  valley  Contentment 
has  found  a  haunt.  At  set  of  sun,  when  these 
clay  banks  glow  and  the  murmuring  shallows 
gleam  with  fire;  when  the  voice  of  the  water  is  a  thanks 
giving  stealing  upward  and  the  harmonious  murmur  of 
those  things  that  only  rivers  know;  then  Content  moves 
along  the  dewy  grasses,  and  dreams  beside  the  silent  pools. 
In  the  gloaming  hour  I  have  divined  her  presence  on  Ta 
mar's  dark  brink." 

Such  words  might  well  describe  our  Brandywine  in  its 
prevalent  mood  of  tranquillity;  they  are  from  Eden  Phill- 
potts'  delightful  book  of  prose  idyls,  My  Devon  Year, — 
a  nature-book  of  true  charm  of  minute  observation,  not 
loaded  down  with  arid  science,  but  alive  with  fine  and 
affectionate  sympathy  for  the  outdoor  world  in  antique 
Devonshire.  Many  an  hour  by  the  Brandywine  has  this 
new  author  shared  a  place  with  Walton  and  with  Jeffer- 
ies.  His  volume  of  reveries  deals,  as  Jefferies'  might  have 
dealt,  with  the  wild  life  and  flowers,  the  quaint  folk  and 
the  hoary  memorials  of  the  loveliest  of  the  counties  of 
southwestern  England.  He  pleads  for  an  intimate  love 
of  God's  beautiful  world.  Those  who  are  blind  to  this 
love  have  "never  lived  alone  with  the  earth.  They  never 
felt  Nature  touch  their  hearts  to  patience,  lift  their  unrest 
call  them  clear-voiced  to  braver  life  and  more 
courageous  thinking." 

Old  Devonshire  gave  us  the  fine  pastoral  poet  William 
Browne,  whose  exquisite  pictures  of  old-time  shepherd 

[41] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


life  proved  so  captivating  to  the  young  Keats.     Browne 
sang  with  simple  zest  of  the 

"jocund  crew  of  youthful   swains 
Wooing   their  sweetings   with  delicious  strains, 
Harvest  folks,  with  curds  and  clouted  cream, 
With  cheese  and  butter,   cakes  and  cates  enow, 
That  are  the  yeoman's  from  the  yoke  or  cow." 

One  may  understand  the  Brandywine's  rustic  charm 
with  a  deeper  appreciation  after  reading  Browne's  Britan 
nia's  Pastorals. 

And  Devonshire  gave  us  the  immortal  Coleridge; 
above  all,  the  ancient  shire  gave  us  the  golden  lyrics  of 
rare  old  Herrick.  A  fragrant  chapter  of  Phillpotts'  vol 
ume  was  written  in  the  graveyard  of  Robert  Herrick's 
church ;  and  I  envy  him  the  joy  of  having  read  the  match 
less  Hesperides  amid  the  very  scenes  of  their  composition. 
"I  had  sooner  read  him  here  and  now,  amid  the  life  and 
scent  of  the  things  he  loved.  .  .  .  The  hock-cart  has  van 
ished,  the  song  of  the  wakers  is  still,  and  the  maypole 
rises  no  more  upon  the  village  green ;  but  youth  and  love, 
red  dawn  and  golden  twilight,  dew  and  rain,  and  the 
buds  of  spring,  are  immortal  .  .  .  welcome  now  to 
us  as  then  to  him,  whose  dust  lies  near  my  footsteps  in 
this  musical  resting-place  of  the  dead." 


[42] 


MORNING  RAIN 


"Come  thou,  and  brim  the  meadow  streams, 

And  soften  all  the  hills  with  mist, 
O  falling  dew!  from  burning  dreams 

By  thee  shall  herb  and  flower  be  kissed; 
And  Earth  shall  bless  thee  yet  again, 

O  gentle,  gentle  summer  rain!" 

TUNE  XXVII.     Rain  is  falling  in  fitful  gusts  and 

k  A-  flaws,  and  the  ring-dove  is  heard  only  in  those  in 
tervals  of  sunshine  that  make  the  lawn's  deep  turf 
shine  with  twinkling  drops,  and  the  white  cattle  gleam 
among  the  meadow  buttercups.  Behind  the  sombre,  an 
cient  House  the  golden-honeysuckle  is  bright,  and  beyond 
its  rich  masses  three  perfect  roses  sway  on  long  graceful 
stems. 

"O  crimson  roses  bending  in  the  rain !" 

The  farm  lads  hang  idly  about  the  cow-sheds,  glad 
to  know  that  the  timothy  hay  is  all  safely  under  roof,  and 
talking  of  the  wheat  that  will  be  ready  for  cutting  "next 
Saturday,  or  mebbe  not  till  Monday  or  Tuesday — there's 
no  tellin'."  The  braver  of  our  bird-friends  pipe  undaunted 
now  and  then,  and  close  to  the  trunk  of  the  purple  beech 
a  robin  is  sheltering  himself  from  the  showers,  and  watch 
ing  the  weather  with  his  head  knowingly  cocked  on  on« 
side. 

'"Dear  little  fellow  !  though  skies  may  be  dreary, 
Nothing  cares  he  while  his  heart  is  so  cheery." 
[43] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


It  is  a  morning  for  meditation;  and  gazing  out  across 
hill  after  green  hill  fading  impalpably  in  rainy  distance,  I 
think  with  affection  of  this  ancient  Pennsylvania  shire, 
dear  to  the  heart  of  every  child  of  her: — 

Old  Chester  County, — land  of  our  delight, 
Founded  and  watched  by  Penn,  here  in  the  wilds 
Of  his  wide  Commonwealth,  in  those  far  days 
That  now  so  ancient  seem  and  so  remote, 
So  dim  with  all  the  mist  of  vanished  years: 
Dear  Chester  County, — loved  of  all  thy  sons, 
And  best,  I  think,  by  those  who  forth  have  gone 
From  out  thy  borders,  who  around  their  hearths, 
In  twilight  hours  when  sentiment  awakes 
And  old  remembrance  warms  the  lonely  heart, 
Speak  fondly  of  thy  woodlands  and  thy  hills; 
Thy  meadows  musical  with  harvest  cheer  ; 
Thy  long  white  barns  where  o'er  the  odorous  mows 
The  never-resting  swallows  sweep  and  sweep ; 
Thy  drowsy  hamlets  where  the  blacksmith's  stroke, 
Measured  and  clear,  is  ofttimes  the  sole  sound 
That  breaks  the  quiet  calm ;  thy  breezy  uplands 
Browsed  o'er  by  lazy  cows  and  fleecy  sheep, 
And,  best  of  all,  thy  softly-flowing  stream, 
Thy  Stream  of  Beauty, — silver  Brandywine. 

Thy  pleasant  name,  old  Shire,  from  English  vales, 
There  in  the  west  by  winding  Dee,  was  brought ; 
And  truly,  of  all  tracts  in  our  broad  land, 
These  meadows  soft  and  wooded  hills  most  seem 
Like  those  of  ancient  pastoral  Cheshire  there 
In  old-world  England. 

[44] 


Morning  Rain 


And  thy  townships,  too, 
Pennsbury,  Nottingham  and  Fallowfield, 
Bradford  and  Warwick  and  the  Coventries, — 
Their  names  are  redolent  of  England's  fields 
And   England's  ancient  thorpes  and  manor-lands. 
And  green  Newlin,  two  centuries  ago 
Settled  and  'stablished  by  an  Irish  squire, 
The  friend  of  noble  Penn, — green-hilled  Newlin, 
That,  with  old  Drumore  in  the  sister  shire 
Of  Lancaster,  my  heart  hath  ever  loved, 
Rich  in  ancestral  memories  as  they  are,  — 
Their  names  I  here  inscribe  with  filial  hand. 


[45] 


A  WORLD  OF  GREEN 


"Oh,  soft  the  streams  drop  music 

Between  the  hills, 
And  musical  the  birds'  nests 

Beside  those  rills; 
The  nests  are  types  of  home 

Love-hidden  from  ills, 
The  nests  are  types  of  spirits 

Love-music  fills/' 

UNE  XXVIII.     Lovely  this  valley  of  ours  after 
rain ! 

The  harvesters  drew  in  the  last  of  their  early 
hay  last  evening,  and  so  could  lie  contentedly  beneath  the 
rafters  while  the  summer  storm  raged  through  the  night. 
All  morning  the  wraiths  of  rain  slanted  across  the  land 
scape, — a  vaporous  silver  veil ;  and  the  Brandywine  rose 
with  the  flood  of  waters  that  rushed  down  every  folding 
of  its  hundred  hills.  This  late  afternoon  the  sun  has 
come  out  palely  through  sailing  clouds,  and  the  wide  vale 
swims  in  misty  gold. 

We  climbed  the  hill  behind  the  apple  trees  and  gazed 
long  on  the  enchanting  scene, — luscious  meadows  edged 
with  tufted  willows,  reddening  wheat  fields,  great  rounded 
slopes  of  shorn  hay-lands,  and  on  many  a  far  hilltop  the 
shadowy,  dreaming  woodlands.  Never  have  we  seen  such 
variety  of  soft  green  tints, — the  uplands  with  their  "pure 
light  warm  green"  that  Rossetti  thought  most  lovable,  the 
silvery  emerald  of  half-ripe  oats  swaying  in  the  fragrant 

[46] 


A  World  of  Green 

\J 


breeze,  the  liquid  green  of  water-meads  whose  rushes  and 
wild  grasses  are  perpetually  moist,  the  exquisite  hazy 
green  of  bending  water-willows,  and  the  strange  shining 
green  of  the  young  corn.  In  the  meadows  were  scattered 
little  pools,  limpid  and  glassy  and  rainy-green,  like  those 
mysterious  waters  that  gleam  from  the  background  of 
Leonardo's  pictures.  As  Alice  Brown  has  it, 

"Lucent   lagoons   lie   here   berimmed   with   foam." 

There  was  that  in  the  vivid  freshness  of  the  landscape, 
blown  over  by  the  soft  evening  winds,  odorous  of  sweet, 
moist  hay,  that  suggested  a  scene  along  some  river  of  Nor 
mandy  or  Old  Provence  in  one  of  the  lovely  paintings  of 
Corot.  Thinking  in  this  vein,  and  turning  over  this  even 
ing  some  prints  of  the  great  dreamer's  works,  I  dwell 
especially  on  his  Dance  of  Nymphs,  Evening. 

I  muse  before  a  landscape  of  Corot, 

Wherein  the   Painter  doth   express 

With  soft,  ideal  loveliness 

All  that  his  loving  heart  would  have  us  know, 

All  that  his  loving  eye  hath  seen, 

In  this  old-world  idyllic  dale, 

Where  silvery  vapors  pale 

Hang  o'er  the  little  copse  of  tenderest  green, 

And  from  the  flowery  turf 

Whose  half-blown  roses  toss  like  faery  surf, 

Fair  sisterhoods  of  slendor  poplars  rise, 

Birches  and  tremulous  aspens,  delicate  trees, 

Diaphanous,  vague  and  cool, — 

While  by  the  soft  marge  of  the  woodland  pool, 

[47] 


Brandy  wine  Day. 


Clear-sculptured  on  the  saffron  evening  skies, 
Sweet  dryad  forms  sway  in  the  breeze, 
Sway, — and  veer, — and  softly  sing 
Enchanted  harmonies  to  greet  the  Spring. 


[48] 


AMONG  THE  GOLDEN  WHEAT 

JUNE  XXIX 

IN  these  last  hours  of  happy-hearted  June, 
When  dewy  clover-heads  their  fragrance  spill, 
When  all  the  morn  and  drowsy  afternoon 
The  clear,  pure  sunshine  sleeps  on  mead  and  hill, 
On  orchards  old  and  gardens  green  and  still, 

To  bless  with  fertile  heat, — 
What  joy  to  wander  to  some  shady  height 
Where  field  on  field  lies  spread  before  the  sight, 
And  muse  all  day  among  the  golden  wheat! 

Across  the  valley  go  the  laden  teams, 

Piled  to  the  ladder's  top  with  sweet,  light  hay, 
There  where  the  Brandywine  ensilvered  gleams 
As  by  low  willowed  banks  it  makes  its  way. 
In  far-off  daisy  fields  as  white  as  they 

The  young  lambs  softly  bleat; 
And  little  children  through  the  happy  hours 
By  yonder  wrood  are  gathering  pale  wild-flowers, 
While  I  do  naught  but  muse  among  the  wheat. 

How  pleasant  and  delightful  is  it  here, 

Through  this  long,  fragrant,  languid  day  of  June, 

To  watch  the  farmers  at  their  harvest  cheer 

With  merry  converse  and  with  whistled  tune, — 
To  see  them  share  their  simple  stores  at  noon 

'Neath  some  old   tree's   retreat; — 
To  see  the  cattle  with  dark  eyes  a-dream 

[49] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


Wade  in  the  cooling  currents  of  the  stream, 

While  I  do  naught  but  muse  among  the  wheat! 

Great  snowy  clouds  are  drifting  down  the  sky, 

And  o'er  the  silence  of  the  noon-tide  hush 
I  hear  the  locust's  languorous,  hot  cry; 

From  out  the  green  depths  of  yon  pendent  bush 
There  pours  the  lyric  music  of  the  thrush ; 

And  from  this  shady  seat 
I  see  the  farmer's  boys  among  the  corn 
Where  they  have  toiling  been  since  early  morn, 
While  I  do  naught  but  muse  among  the  wheat. 

By  mossy  fences  of  this  upland  farm 

The  old  sweet-briar  rose  is  twining  wild ; 
Dear  flower,  its  old-time  fragrance  hath  a  charm 
To  wake  forgotten  thoughts  and  memories  mild 
Of  those  far  years  when  as  a  pensive  child 

I  came  with  wandering  feet 
To  pluck  these  flowers,  or  ramble  hand  in  hand 
With  him  who  never  more  across  this  land 
May  gaze  or  muse  among  the  golden  wheat. 

Lo,  while  I  dream,  the  wind  stirs  in  the  leaves, — 

And  hath  this  lovely  day  so  quickly  flown  ? 
The  harvesters  have  left  the  yellow  sheaves, 
And  I  am  here  upon  the  hills  alone ; 
One  sad  ring-dove  with  melancholy  moan 

The  vesper-hour  doth  greet. 
Across  the  fields  the  sun  is  going  down, 
It  gilds  the  steeples  of  the  distant  town, 

And  I  must  cease  to  muse  among  the  wheat. 

[50] 


Among  the  Golden  Upbeat 

Old  Chester  County,  land  of  peaceful  dales, 

Of  misty  hills  and  shadow-haunted  woods, — 
I  love  the  silence  of  thy  pastoral  vales, 
The  music  of  thy  Brandywine  that  broods 
And  dreams  through  leafy  summer  solitudes 

With  murmurs  dim  and  sweet. 
All  my  child-heart,  all  glamour  of  old  days, 
Awake  when  thus  I  walk  thy  country  ways 
And  muse  in  June  among  the  golden  wheat! 


[51] 


AN  OLD-WORLD  POET 


"*  tf'UNE  XXX.  In  his  book  of  cheery  maxims,  Some 
%J-  Fruits  of  Solitude,  William  Penn  says:  "The 
Country  Life  is  to  be  preferr'd,  for  there  we  see 
the  works  of  God  .  .  .  the  Country  is  both  the 
Philosopher's  Garden  and  his  Library  ...  a  Sweet 
and  Natural  Retreat  from  Noise  and  Talk,  and  allows 
opportunity  for  Reflection." 

Henry  Vaughan,  like  Robert  Herrick,  belongs  to  the 
line  of  authors  who  find  their  inspiration  amid  the  country 
side  seclusion  praised  by  William  Penn.  A  son  of  that 
wondrous  century  which  gave  us  Herrick  and  Penn  and 
many  another  elect  soul,  Vaughan  had  the  angelic  vision 
and  childlike  naivete  of  his  age.  His  finest  verses  adorn 
every  anthology,  as, — 

"I  saw  Eternity  the  other  night 

Like  a  great  Ring  of  pure  and  endless  light, 

All   calm    as   it   was  bright;" 

and  his  splendid  recalling  of  friends  lost  from  earth,  in  a 
poem  which  Lowell  held  dear, — 

"They   are  all   gone   into  the  world   of   light! 

And   I   alone   sit  ling'ring  here ! 
Their  very  memory  is  fair  and  bright. 
I  see  them  walking  in  an  Air  of  glory;" 

and  his  poem,  "The  Retreate,"  which  Wordsworth  echoed 
in  the  noble  "Intimations  of  Immortality."  Not  very  far 
from  the  days  of  monkish  penance  and  abasement  was  the 
poet  who  could  make  this  avowal, — 

[52] 


An  Old- World  Poet 


"Happy  those  early  dayes,  when  I 
Shin'd  in  my  Angell-inf  ancy ! 
Before    I    understood    this    place 
Appointed  for  my  second  race, 
Or  taught  my  soul  to  fancy  aught 
But    a   white,    Celestial   thought. 
When  on  some  gilded  Cloud  or  flowre 
My  gazing  soul   would  dwell   an   houre, 
And  in  those  weaker  glories  spy 
Some  shadows  of  eternity." 

From  Vaughan's  book,  Silex  Scintillans,  or  Sacred 
Poems  and  Private  Ejaculations,  come  his  best-known 
things.  The  precious  little  volume  is  dated  1650,  the  year 
after  Robert  Herrick  gave  his  golden  Hesperides  to  the 
world ;  thus  yielding  proof  that,  as  to  the  Devonshire 
vicarage  came  no  rumble  of  the  Cromwell  cannon,  so  the 
clangors  of  those  tragic  days  were  unheard  in  the  village 
of  South  Wales  where  Henry  Vaughan  meditated  his  holy 
and  contented  muse. 

Like  most  Welsh  youth  of  the  gentler  class,  our  poet 
attended  Jesus  College,  Oxford.  His  family  was  an 
ancient  one;  two  of  his  ancestors  laid  down  their  lives  at 
Agincourt,  and  two  of  the  family  figure  in  Shakespeare's 
historical  plays.  The  young  poet,  then,  would  find  the 
way  open  for  him  to  Oxford's  choicest  company ;  indeed, 
he  seems  to  have  matched  verses  with  the  university  wits, 
for  we  find  among  his  earlier  songs  the  usual  protestations 
to  Amoret,  to  Fida,  and  to  Etesia.  Fida's  eyes,  he  de 
clares,  are  "like  twinkling  stars,"  her  breath  "as  sweet  as 
new-blown  roses."  To  Etesia  he  sings,  with  premoni 
tions  of  his  rare  later  fancy, — 

[53] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


"Thou  art  the  dark  world's  morning-star, 
Seen  only,  and  seen  but  from  far; 
Where,   like    astronomers,   we   gaze 
Upon  the  glories  of  thy  face." 

Vaughan's  book  is  one  for  reading  in  quiet  hours  of 
summer  mornings,  in  rose-bowered  arbors  or  under  green 
willows  beside  a  cool  stream.  Thus  it  is  that  I  turn  now 
and  then  to  this  old-world  book  of  the  Welsh  poet. 


[54] 


NATURE'S  HEALING 


JULY  II 


"Above  all  vocal  sons  of  men, 
To  Wordsworth  be  my  homage,  thanks,  and  love." 


tired  city  and  the  hot-breathed  streets, 
The  little  children  sad  and  wistful-eyed, 
Pale,  weary  mothers,  all  the  hopeless  throng 
That  crowd  the  stifling  courts  and  alleys  dark, 
Cheated  of  beauty,  doomed  to  toil  and  plod 
Year  in,  year  out,  in  endless  poverty 
And  seemingly  forgotten  of  their  God,  — 
These  passed  from  sight  but  not  from  memory, 
As  forth  I  journeyed  by  wide-spreading  lawns 
And  lavish  homes  of  luxury,  and  saw 
Extravagance,  display,  and  worldly  pomp, 
And  joyless  people  striving  hard  for  joy. 
I  grieved  for  those  sad  children  and  the  throngs 
Pent  in  hot  city  walls;  I  grieved  for  these 
Unthinking  devotees  of  pride  and  show. 
What  medicine  is  there,  what  healing  power,  — 
I  mused,  —  to  calm  and  soothe  these  suffering  hearts 
Stifled  by  poverty  or  dulled  by  wealth? 
Is  there  no  anodyne  to  heal  them  all, 
No  gift  from  God  to  lift  them  and  console 
And  bring  again  the  golden  age  to  men  ? 

Lo,  turning  to  the  loved  and  friendly  page 
Of  Wordsworth's  book  beside  me  on  the  grass 

[55] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


By  silver  Brandywine's  Arcadian  stream, 
I  read  how  "Nature  never  did  betray 
The  heart  that  loved  her;  'tis  her  privilege, 
Through  all  the  years  of  this  our  life,  to  lead 
From  joy  to  joy;  for  she  can  so  inform 
The  mind  that  is  within  us,  so  impress 
With  quietness  and  beauty,  and  so  feed 
With  lofty  thoughts,  that  neither  evil  tongues, 
Rash  judgments,  nor  the  sneers  of  selfish  men, 
Nor  greetings  where  no  kindness  is,  nor  all 
The  dreary  intercourse  of  daily  life, 
Shall  e'er  prevail  against  us  or  disturb 
Our  cheerful  faith,  that  all  which  we  behold 
Is  full  of  blessings." 


[56] 


BOOK-HUNTING  IN  LONDON 

"O  to  hunt  books 

In   the   Charing   Cross  Road!" 
JULY  VI 

HOOKING  over  my  well-worn  and  best-loved  old 
volumes    this    long   rainy   day,    I    am    filled    with 
many   a  memory   of   the   places   and    times    of   ac 
quiring  these  silent  and  faithful  comrades.    Those  brought 
over-sea    from    book-shops    in    the    Old    World, — from 
Oxford  and  London,   from  the  market-place  in  Verona, 
from  ancient  Strasburg, — possess  their  own  charm.     Most 
fascinating  of  all  book-stalls  are  those  of  old  London ! 

There  is  indeed  no  winter  of  discontent  for  one  who 
goes  book-hunting  in  Holborn  and  Charing  Cross  Road. 
The  fog  may  be  dense  and  the  street  lamps  dim  at  noon 
day,  but  for  him  who  plies  the  delightful  quest  of  old 
volumes  the  soft  yellow  haze  adds  a  glamor  and  seems 
to  shut  him  up  in  his  own  little  sphere  in  deepest  con 
tentment  of  heart.  Very  near  to  Charles  Lamb  did  I  feel 
while  idling  in  Booksellers'  Row  in  late  wintry  after 
noons.  This  old  thoroughfare — now  unhappily  "im 
proved"  out  of  existence — lay  somewhere  near  the  route 
from  the  Temple  to  Christ's  Hospital ;  and  I  doubt  not 
that  the  young  Charles  found  himself  often  there  as  he 
passed  from  cloister  to  cloister.  Along  these  antique 
streets  and  by-ways,  where  clustered  old  book  stalls, 
Charles  Lamb  may  have  had  his  early  taste  for  leather- 
clad  folios  made  the  keener.  He  had  long  before  been 
tumbled  into  the  spacious  closets  of  good  old  English 

[57] 


Brandy -wine  Days 


reading  in  the  library  of  Samuel  Salt,  Esq.,  and  had 
browsed  at  will  upon  that  fair  and  wholesome  pastur 
age.  In  Booksellers'  Row  he  might  have  found — as  he 
later  found  at  the  Bodleian  Library — the  odor  of  old 
moth-scented  coverings  of  folios  and  quartos  as  fragrant 
as  the  first  bloom  of  those  sciential  apples  which  grew 
amid  the  happy  orchards. 

Old  Books  are  best!  I  confess  to  that  belief.  Why 
else  did  I  put  aside  the  prim  little  Shakespeares  in  their 
fresh  green  leather,  in  the  showy  Holborn  shop,  and  buy 
the  old  Malone  variorum  edition  of  1803  in  Booksellers' 
Row?  Books  associate  themselves  for  us  with  the  places 
where  we  bought  them  and  the  places  where  we  read 
them.  These  old  Shakespeares  forever  recall  that  yellow 
fog  and  that  ancient  stall  on  a  certain  December  after 
noon.  The  notes  may  not  discuss  the  latest  German 
theory  of  Hamlet's  madness,  but  they  are  delightfully 
ample  and  leisurely,  covering  mostly  the  greater  part  of 
the  page;  and  their  obsolete  wisdom  is  always  vouched 
for  by  Malone,  or  Johnson,  or  Steevens,  or  T.  Warton, 
or  other  old-time  editors.  Hardly  will  you  meet  with 
such  a  world  of  quaint  annotation,  save  in  Dr.  Furness' 
generous  pages,  where  the  droll,  strange  editors  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century  find  so  kindly  a  welcome.  Old  Books 
are  best!  I  think  it,  as  I  inhale  the  fragrance  of  the 
stout  pages  and  caress  the  tarnished  tree-calf  covers  of 
these  twenty-one  worn  volumes  of  Shakespeare's  Plays. 

The  folio  of  Spenser,  whose  epic  Sir  Walter  Scott 
avowed  he  could  read  forever,  and  whom  Lowell 
ranked  along  with  Marlowe,  his  earliest  favorite — Spen 
ser's  noble  folio  here  on  my  desk  has  a  singularly  precious 

[58] 


Book-Hunting  in  London 

association  connected  with  it,  for  it  was  bought  imme 
diately  after  I  came  from  the  stately  funeral  of  Lord 
Tennyson.  The  linking  of  the  two  august  poets  in  this 
way  has  meant  an  added  joy  in  the  persual  of  my  copy 
of  Spenser  ever  since  that  day.  "No  writer  ever  found 
a  nearer  way  to  the  heart  than  he,"  .thought  Theophilus 
Gibber.  I  hold  myself  a  Spenserian ;  and  fortified  by 
Keats  and  Scott  and  Lowell  and  Gibber,  I  shall  continue 
to  cherish  and  applaud  Spenser's  noble  idealism  and  un- 
matchable  melody  to  the  end.  It  is  no  mere  fancy  that 
makes  those  solemn  services  in  the  Abbey,  and  the  dreamy 
hum  of  the  old  London  streets — that  "mery  London," 
Spenser's  "most  kyndly  nurse" — rise  in  memory  in  the 
happy  summer  hours  that  find  me  lingering  over  the 
"Shepheards  Calender"  or  "The  Faerie  Queene"  in  this 
treasureable  volume. 

A  few  dollars  will  go  a  long  way  among  London  book 
stalls.  Little  Eighteenth  century  editions  o.f  The  Spec 
tator,  and  of  Pope  and  Gray  and  Cowper,  may  often  be 
picked  up  for  sixpence  a  volume.  The  flavor  of  antiquity 
clings  to  them ;  old  names  of  former  owners,  and  choice 
old  faded  book-plates,  enrich  the  fly-leaves;  the  curious 
antiquated  notes  and  the  quaint  type  carry  one  back  to 
the  days  of  Queen  Anne  and  the  early  Georges.  One 
reads  and  reads  these  dear  delightful  books  with  a  gusto 
that  no  recently  published  editions  can  ever  give. 

"By  my  troth,  here's  an  excellent  comfortable  book; 
it's  most  siceet  reading  in  it," — how  often  may  one  ex 
claim  thus,  with  old  Dekker! 


[59] 


OLD  FISHING  AND  WISHING" 

"Then  come,  my  friend,  forget  your  foes, 

and  leave  your  fears  behind, 
And  wander  forth  to  try  your  luck, 

with  cheerful,  quiet  mind; 
For  be  your  fortune  great  or  small, 

you'll  take  what  God  may  give, 
And  all  the  day  your  heart  shall  say, 

'  'Tis  luck  enough  to  live.'  " 

ULY  VII.  Twenty  years  ago  the  Brandywine  was 
an  excellent  stream  for  bass-fishing.  I  well  re 
member  the  patient  elderly  anglers  who  would 
sit  beneath  our  willows  and  watch  their  corks  the  day  long, 
turning  homeward  at  evenfall  with  choice  strings  of  bass. 
And  when  the  stream  was  unusually  clear,  we  could  spy 
these  dark  fish  down  in  the  cool  water  above  the  smooth 
sand-beds, 

Now  winnowing  the  water  with  clear  gills, 
Now  darting  with  a  flash  of  purple  fin 
Far  into  watery  shades  and  silent  homes 
Of  willow  roots  beneath  the  sedgy  bank, 
Or  shadowy  chambers  in  the  sunless  rocks. 
But,  recently,  the  German  carp  have  been  introduced 
by  some  enterprizing  citizens,  and  as  a  result  the  bass  have 
yielded  ground,  or,  rather,  water, — to  the  intruders.  Save 
for  "them  six  big  bass"  that  an  ancient  villager  boasts  of 
having  "ketched"  in  the  stream  last  summer,  I  have  not 
heard  of  a  haul  of  these  fine  and  lamented  beauties  for 

[60] 


"Old  Fishing  and  W^ishing" 

many  a  day.  The  carp  have  the  Brandywine  almost  to 
themselves,  and  we  can  see  them, — large  whitish  fellows, 
— vaulting  out  of  the  water  daily.  But  are  the  carp  ogres 
among  the  fish  tribes,  driving  out  the  finer  sorts?  I  can 
fancy  the  alarm  of  the  young  fall-fish  and  the  baby  bass 
when  one  of  these  big-eyed,  leathery  monsters  comes  sweep 
ing  in  among  their  innocent  schools.  How  they  must  flee 
in  consternation  to  their  mothers'  sheltering  fins!  So  I 
think  that,  with  the  coming  in  of  the  carp  and  the  going 
out  of  the  bass,  we  have  fallen  on  evil  days. 

Yet  one  cannot  but  feel  some  tenderness  for  the  in 
truders,  when  he  finds  honest  Walton  averring  that  "the 
Carp  is  a  stately,  a  good,  and  a  subtle  fish,  a  fish  that  hath 
not  (as  it  is  said)  been  long  in  England  but  said  to  be  by 
one  Mr.  Mascall  (a  Gentleman  then  living  at  Plumsted 
in  Sussex)  brought  into  this  Nation." 

Rambling  along  agreeably  with  his  carp-lore,  the  gen 
tle  Izaak  informs  his  pupil  "that  they  breed  more  nat 
urally  in  Ponds  then  in  running  waters,  and  that  those 
that  live  in  Rivers  are  taken  by  men  of  the  best  palates 
to  be  much  the  better  meat." 

The  carp  is  by  all  odds  the  most  considerable  and 
stately  of  our  Brandywine  fish ;  not  even  our  old  villager's 
generous  imagination  can  raise  a  bass  to  the  proportions  of 
a  full-grown  carp.  In  triumph  let  me  quote  from  the 
Compleat  Angler  in  support  of  my  statement  to  doubting 
relatives  as  to  the  "great  and  goodly  fish"  I  saw  leaping 
and  lunging  in  the  shallows  the  other  day: — 

"The  Carp,  if  he  have  water  room  and  good  feed,  will 
grow  to  a  very  great  bigness  and  length :  I  have  heard, 
to  above  a  yard  long;  though  I  never  saw  one  above  thirty 

[61J 


Brandy  wine  Days 


three  inches,  which  was  a  very  great  and  goodly  fish."  Ah, 
dear  old  Piscator,  of  what  a  "tryed  honestie"  dost  thou 
approve  thyself  in  thy  cautious  phrase  "I  have  heard"! 

Walton,  naively  enough,  recommends  "hope  and  pa 
tience"  to  the  angler  for  carp : — "I  have  knowne  a  very 
good  Fisher  angle  diligently  four  or  six  hours  in  a  day, 
for  three  or  four  dayes  together  for  a  River  Carp,  and  not 
have  a  bite." 

What  a  picture  arises  at  the  words, — philosophic  old 
men  dozing  beside  their  poles  under  shady  willows,  seem 
ing  a  veritable  part  of  the  sleepy  Sussex  or  Staffordshire 
landscape  itself!  Few  such  long-enduring  anglers,  it  is 
to  be  feared,  would  old  Izaak  discover  on  our  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  unless  he  could  perchance  awake  in  some  such 
quiet  corner  as  one  of  our  Brandywine  valleys. 

Of  baits  for  the  carp  there  be  many,  says  he,  "of 
worms  I  think  the  blewish  Marsh  or  Meadow  worm  is 
best."  But  the  fisherman  who  hunts  vainly  for  a  worm 
of  the  proper  "blewish"  tint,  may  find  comfort  in  Pisca- 
tor's  generous  alternative, — "but  possibly  another  worm 
not  too  big  may  do  as  well,  and  so  may  a  Gentle;  and  as 
for  Pastes,  there  are  almost  as  many  sorts  as  there  are 
Medicines  for  the  Toothach." 

And  for  our  Brandywine  carp-fishers, — degenerates 
from  the  good  old  bass-days ! — let  me  give  Walton's  clos 
ing  counsel, — which  I  have  always  thought  one  of  the 
gems  from  his  "sweet  Socratic  lip": — 

"And  if  you  fish  for  a  Carp  with  Gentles,  then  put 
upon  your  hook  a  small  piece  of  Scarlet  about  this  bigness 
n  ,  it  being  soked  in,  or  anointed  with  Oyle  of  Peter, 
called  by  some,  Oyl  of  the  Rock;  and  if  your  Gentles 

[62J 


"Old  Fishing  and  Welshing" 

be  put  two  or  three  dayes  before  into  a  box  or  horn 
anointed  with  Honey,  and  so  put  upon  your  hook,  as  to 
preserve  them  to  be  living,  you  are  as  like  to  kill  this 
craftie  fish  this  way  as  any  other;  but  still  as  you  are  fish 
ing,  chaw  a  little  white  or  brown  bread  in  your  mouth, 
and  cast  it  into  the  Pond  about  the  place  where  your 
flote  swims.  Other  baits  there  be,  but  these  with  dili 
gence,  and  patient  watchfulness,  will  do  it  as  well  as  any 
as  I  have  ever  practised,  or  heard  of;  and  yet  I  shall  tell 
you,  that  the  crumbs  of  white  bread  and  honey  made  into 
a  Paste,  is  a  good  bait  for  a  Carp,  and  you  know  it  is  more 
easily  made." 

O  for  the  sweet,  serene  philosophy  of  this  long-dead 
"Brother  of  the  Angle''  who  basked  contentedly  in  the 
sunshine  and  had  a  "pitie"  for  "poor-rich  men,"  "men 
that  are  condemn'd  to  be  rich,  and  always  discontented, 
or  busie"!  How  few  of  us  to-day  can  say,  with  this  old 
Seventeenth-Century  sage,  that  "we  enjoy  a  contented- 
nesse  above  the  reach  of  such  dispositions"! 

"What  trout  shall  coax  the  rod  of  yore 
In  lichen  stream  to  dip? 
What  lover  of  her  banks  restore 
That  sweet  Socratic  lip? 
Old  fishing  and  wishing 
Are  over  many  a  year." 

Thus  wrote  Louise  Imogen  Guiney,  whose  affinity  for 
Walton  and  Vaughan  and  other  worthies  of  the  old  Cav 
alier  days  makes  her  their  "verie  fitte"  interpreter. 

If  I  add  a  paragraph  that  has  naught  to  do  with  my 
theme, — the  Carp, — I  may  plead  the  example  of  that  de- 

[63] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


lightful  follower  of  side-paths,  Charles  Lamb.  I  cannot 
refrain  from  copying  out  of  my  Compleat  Angler  (a  port 
ly  little  volume,  secured  from  that  last  of  old-fashioned 
book-sellers,  Bernard  Quaritch,  in  Piccadilly)  a  presenta 
tion-letter  which  I  found  in  the  Bodleian  Library  copy  of 
the  fifth  edition  (1676)  of  Walton's  quaint  book. 

"For  Mrs.  Wallop 

"I  think  I  did  some  years  past  lend  you  a  booke  of 
Angling:  This  is  printed  since  and  I  think  better; 
And  because  nothing  that  I  can  pretend  a  tytell  too, 
can  be  too  good  for  you  pray  accept  of  this  also,  from 
me  that  am  really 

"Madam 

"Yor  most  affectionate  friend 
"And,  most  humble  servant 

"Izaak  Walton." 


[64] 


OLD  HILLS  MY  BOYHOOD  KNEW 

JULY  VIII 

I 

'HOULD  I  not  hold  them  dear, 
These  harvest-laden  hills  around  me  here, 
Old  hills  my  boyhood  knew, 
Green  hills  beneath  what  skies  of  blue! — 
Hills  looking  over  fields  with  deep  peace  crowned, 
Peaceful,  beloved,  ancestral  ground. 
Who  would  not  count  it  joy 
To  roam  the  hills  he  roamed  a  happy  boy! 

II 

Far  off  I  see  the  men  among  the  wheat; 

The  ox-teams,  patient,  slow; 

The  heavy  sheaves  piled   up  in  yellow  row; 

I  hear  the  field-lark's  carol  sweet, 

The  blackbird's  gipsy  call  ; 

I  see  the  tasselled  corn-fields  smile 

For  mile  on  emerald  mile, 

And   cattle  browsing  under  oak-trees   tall 

In  meadows  starred  with  tender  flowers. 

The  long  rich  summer  hours 

Are  none  too  long  on  this  green  height, 

Beneath  these  gnarled  old  cherry  trees 

Where  many  a  charming  sight 

Enchants  me, — where  the  balmy  breeze, 

[65] 


Brandy  wine  Days 

This  dreamy  summer  day, 

Comes  odorous  from  hills  of  hay 

And  fields  of  ripening  oats, — 

Where  great  cloud-shadows  slowly  pass 

Across  the  waving  grass, — 

Where  upward  from  the  valley  softly  floats 

The  song  of  children  wading  there 

In  plashing  waters  silvery  and  cool, 

Like  oreads  beside  a  forest  pool 

With  dark  and  streaming  hair. 

Ill 

Across  the  landscape  with  low  drowsy  song 

And  golden  flash  and  gleam, 

Behold  how  happily  our  winding  stream, 

Our  Stream  of  Beauty,  flows  along! — 

Now  under  pendent  boughs  of  silent  woods 

'Mid  leafy  solitudes, 

Now  rushing  over  rocks  set  long  ago 

By  Indian  anglers  in  gigantic  row, 

Now  flowing  where  the  flossy  heifers  feed 

And  white  sheep  nibble  slow 

In  many  a  deep-grassed  solitary  mead, 

Now  winding  under  willow-bordered  banks 

Where  lilies  grow  in  yellow  ranks 

And  water-weeds  nod  o'er  the  placid  stream 

Wrapt  all  in  sleepy  dream. 

IV 

O  these  are  sights  to  make  the  pulses  glow, 
To  touch  with  magic  power, 

[66] 


Old  Hills  My  Boyhood  Knew 

To  waken  memories  of  long  ago 

And  many  a  long-lost  summer  hour! 

— Old  harvest-laden  hills  around  me  here, 

Should  I  not  hold  you  dear, 

Old  hills  my  boyhood  knew, 

Green  hills  beneath  those  skies  of  blue! 


[67J 


THE  CHILDREN 


"All  heaven  hath  dreamed  and  smiled 
In  the  sweet  face  of  a  child." 

*" — I'ULY  IX.  "Put  the  children  into  your  Hour- 
^l£-  Glass,"  urges  my  Celtic  friend,  he  whose  heart 
is  ever  tender  towards  his  own  and  all  other  win 
some  little  folk.  Yes,  I  reply, — but  can  you  tell  me  by 
what  magic  one  can  express  a  tithe  of  the  sunshine  and 
charm  and  ineffable  loveliness  of  childhood? 

"Heaven   lies  about  us  in  our  infancy," 

says  the  magnificent  Ode  over  whose  creation  Wordsworth 
pondered  for  well-nigh  the  Horatian  period.  Surely,  we 
must  leave  to  Blake  and  Wordsworth  and  Stevenson  the 
portrayal  of  the  eternal  joy  and  artlessness  of  the  child- 
heart. 

The  sweet  seriousness  and  unconscious  depth  of  char 
acter  so  often  seen  in  the  clear  faces  of  children  have  at 
tracted  many  a  poet's  wonder.  Dinah  Mulock  Craik  has 
described  "A  Child's  Smile", — 

"A  child's  smile, — nothing  more ; 

Quiet,  and  soft,  and  grave,  and  seldom  seen, 
Like  summer  lightning  o'er, 

Leaving  the  little  face  again  serene." 

And  how  quaint  and  bonny  is  this  stanza  from  Hugh 
Miller's  Scotch  poem,  "The  Babie"! 

[68] 


T'he  Children 


"Her  een  sae  like  her  mither's  een, 

Twa   gentle,   liquid   things; 
Her  face  is  like  an  angel's  face — 
We're  glad  she  has  nae  wings!" 

This  beautiful  ethical  view  of  child-life,  that  sees  the 
innocent  soul  shining  through  the  little  wistful  face,  dates 
from  a  century  ago,  when  Wordsworth,  radiant  with 
spiritual  vision  and  all  the  freshness  of  high  poetic  youth, 
was  giving  forth  his  exquisite  lines  in  portrayal  of  real 
or  ideal  maidenhood, — 

"Her's  the  silence   and  the  calm 
Of  mute,  insensate  things!" — 

"Beauty  born  of  murmuring  sound 
Shall   pass   into   her   face;" — 

"She  seem'd  a  thing  that  could  not  feel 
The   touch   of   earthly   years;" — 

"A  face  with  gladness  overspread; 
Soft  smiles,  by  human  kindness  bred ;" — 

lines,  it  seems  to  me,  matchless  for  their  simple  beauty 
and  spiritual  pathos.  Yet  matchless  as  they  are,  they 
find  no  mean  echo  in  the  utterance  of  later  singers, 
as  when  Lowell  writes  of  his  daughter, — 

"I  know  not  how  others  saw  her, 

But  to  me  she  was  wholly  fair, 
And  the  light  of  the  heaven  she  came  from 
Still  lingered  and  gleamed  in  her  hair," — 

or  when  Frederick  Locker  thus  addresses  his  winsome 
child: 

[69] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


"Your  calm,  blue  eyes  have  a  far-off  reach. 

Look  at  me  with  those  wondrous  eyes. 
Why  are  we  doomed  to  the  gift  of  speech 

While  you  are  silent  and  sweet  and  wise? 
You  have  much  to  learn;  you  have  more  to  teach,  Baby  mine." 

So  with  scores  of  simple  and  tender  lyrics  of  childhood. 
One  could  fill  many  a  page  with  the  fair  little  child-songs 
of  old  Herrick,  the  whimsical  fantasies  of  Lewis  Carroll, 
the  sadly  beautiful  threnodies  of  Elizabeth  Chapman  for 
a  lost  boy.  Charles  Tennyson-Turner's  sonnet  should  not 
be  forgotten,  telling  how  little  Letty  fondly  patted  her 
toy  globe, — 

"And  while  she  hid  all  England  with  a  kiss, 
Bright  over  Europe  fell  her  golden  hair;" — 

nor  that  grave,  sweet  elegy  of  our  American  laureate  of 
childhood,  James  Whitcomb  Riley, — 

"And  this  is  the  way  the  baby  slept ; 

A  mist  of  tresses  backward  thrown 
By  quivering  sighs  where  kisses  crept 

With  yearnings  she  had  never  known ; 
The  little  hands  were  closely  kept 

About  a   lily  newly  blown 
And  God  was  with  her.     And  we  wept — 

And  this  is  the  way  the  baby  slept." 

Here,  by  the  old  flag-paven  porch,  sits  little  Brown- 
Eyes,  blowing  bubbles ;  she  is  enthralled  by  the  perfect 
spheres  of  iridescent  film  that  float  so  faerily  from  the 
pipe,  hover  an  instant,  and  then  fail  into  nothingness.  The 
evanescence  of  these  strangely  fascinating  water-balls  is 
an  emblem  of  the  charm  of  children's  ways,  their  tears 

[70] 


The  Children 


and  smiles  that  chase  each  other  like  the  rains  and  suns 
of  April. 

Last  evening,  in  the  gathering  twilight,  I  watched  a 
bonny  little  maiden  and  her  blue-eyed  cousins  flitting 
among  the  evergreens  and  the  half-shut  roses.  Like  spir 
its  they  seemed  in  the  shadowy  air,  ethereal  forms, — like 
those  of  which  the  Greeks  dreamed,  and  which  people  the 
silvery  glades  of  Corot's  forest-sides.  At  last,  wearied  with 
their  frolic,  they  came  and  asked  for  a  story, — they  who 
had  been  acting  there,  with  sweet  grace  and  abandon,  a 
Greek  pastorale  of  thirty  centuries  ago, — calling  poor  me 
from  my  reverie  and  seeking  the  consolation  of  a  twilight 
tale  that  could  be  to  their  innocent  drama  but  as  clay  to 
fine  gold !  Ah,  little  ones,  what  unsuspected  power  and 
fascination  is  yours! 

And  now  in  the  sweet  shadowy  hour  they  troop  off  to 
wards  the  house,  like  homing  birds  seeking  the  nest,  and 
they  are  chanting  as  they  go  the  favorite  song  of  little 
Bunny, — the  jocund  refrain  of  Autolycus, — 

"Jog  on,  jog  on,  the  foot-path  way, 

And  merrily  hent  the  stile-a; 

A  merry  heart  goes  all  the  day. 

Your  sad  tires  in  a  mile-a." 


[71] 


OLD-TIME  ECLOGUES 


"And  asked  who  thee  forth  did  bring, 
A  shepheards  sivaine,  saye,  did  thee  sing 
All  as  his  straying  flocke  he  fedde." 

I'ULY  X.     Looking  over  some  notes  of  browsings 

\^  A-  among  the  pastoral  poets  of  England,  I  revive  this 

afternoon  my  devotion  to  the  earlier  eclogues;  and 

mine  ancient  friend  Barnabe  Googe  seems  to  sound  his 

rural  pipes  among  our  green  Brandywine  meadows. 

Some  sixteen  years  before  Spenser,  prince  of  the  pasto 
ral  muse,  made  use  of  the  term  "eclogue,"  it  was  appro 
priated  by  Googe,  whose  own  quaint  name  smacks  of  home 
ly  shepherding  and  rustic  revelry.  In  his  engaging  little 
book,  JLglogs,  Epytaphes,  and  Sonnettes,  of  1563,  our  Bar 
nabe  writes  with  old-fashioned  joy  in  country  comforts,  as 
in  this  very  charming  shepherd  avowal : 

"Menalcas  best  we  nowe   departe, 

my   Cottage   us   shall   keepe, 
For  there  is  rowme  for  the,  and  me, 

and  eke  for  all  our  sheepe: 
Som  Chestnuts  have  I  there  in  store 

with  Cheese  and  pleasaunt  whaye, 
God  sends  me  Vittayles  for  my  nede, 

and  I  synge  Care  awaye." 

Ere  yet  the  silver  Avon  knew  the  boy  Shakespeare  and 
his  love  for  the  idyllic  countryside,  Barnabe  Googe  was 
sounding  his  tuneful  oat  and  essaying  his  old-world  melo 
dies  by  Lincolnshire  fields  and  hedgerows.  And  with  all 

[72] 


0 Id-Time  Eclogues 


his  English  rural  flavor,  he  was  not  forgetful  of  the 
nomenclature  of  the  ancient  bucolic  poets,  for  his  eight 
"Eglogs"  yield  such  old  familiar  shepherd  names  as 
Daphnes,  Amintas,  Dametas,  Menalcas,  Melibeus,  Cori- 
don,  Silvanus, — an  Arcadian  company,  surely! 

The  elaborate  and  delightful  recording  of  rustic  de 
bates  and  meditations,  which  renders  so  memorable  a 
charm  in  Edmund  Spenser's  pastorals,  harks  back  to  the 
earlier  and  simpler  poet.  Thus  the  venerable  Amintas,  in 
Egloga  Prima,  closes  his  homely  discourse  in  this  wise: 

"And  thus  an  end,  I  weryed  am, 

my  wynde  is  olde,  and  faynt; 
Such  matters  I  do  leave  to  suche, 

as  finer  farre  can  paint, 
Fetche  in  the  Gote  that  goes  astraye, 

and  dryve  hym  to  the  folde, 
My  yeares  be  great,  I  wyl  be  gone, 

for  spryngtyme  nyghts  be  colde." 


[73] 


OXFORD'S  IDEALIST 


He  loved  the  comeliness  upon  the  face 
Of  things,  their  excellence  and  grace, — 
Old  memoried  mansions,  rippling  wheat, 
The  eyes  of  little  children  wistful-sweet, 
The  vesper-songs  in  Oxford's  stately  nave; 

He  cherished  recollections  of  still  hours 

Of  musing  in  grey  old-world  shrines 

Or  reading  his  loved  poets  'mid  the  vines 

And  honey-hearted   flowers 

Of  Oxford's  slumbrous  gardens;  and  he  gave 

Deep  utterance  to  these  in  perfect  speech 
Such  as  the  Greeks  alone  might  reach, — 
Moving  with  music,  golden-sweet  of  tone, 
Glowing  like  some  rich  stone, — 
A  speech  that  may  not  be 
Surpassed  in  charm  or  high  felicity. 

tf'ULY  XI.  Walter  Pater  discoursing  on  Raphael 
k  A-  in  Oxford  on  a  summer  evening, — I  can  never 
forget  his  dreamy,  absorbed  manner,  his  measured 
half-chanting  of  his  sentences, — sentences  with  such  a 
flavor! — as  thus:  "Yet  Plato,  as  you  know,  supposed  a 
kind  of  visible  loveliness  about  ideas.  Well!  in  Raphael, 
painted  ideas,  painted  and  visible  philosophy,  are  for  once 
as  beautiful  as  Plato  thought  they  must  be,  if  one  truly 
apprehended  them." 

[74] 


Oxford '  s  Idealist 


From  that  day  to  this  I  have  dwelt  under  the  spell  of 
a  master  of  no  ordinary  power  and  charm,  a  master  who 
through  all  his  pages, — whether  he  revive  with  fresh  glory 
the  pure,  calm  faith  of  the  old  Greeks,  or  the  strange, 
rich  life  of  the  middle  ages;  whether  he  report  his  vivid 
impressions  of  an  ancient  Norman  church  or  of  a  centu- 
ried  and  fragrant  London  garden,  or  of  a  band  of  athletic 
youth  beside  the  Thames  at  Oxford, — through  all  his 
beautiful  discourse,  cherishes  and  preaches  the  passion  for 
perfection. 

As  I  look  over  his  well-beloved  books  to-day,  here  in 
the  tranquil  shade  of  the  oaks,  beside  the  low-murmuring 
Brandywine, — I  realize  afresh  that  Walter  Pater  was 
one  who  drew  disciples  about  him,  and  made  them  for  all 
time  the  lovers  and  champions  of  goodness  and  of  beauty, 
by  force  of  a  "sweet  attractive  kind  of  grace"  that  distin 
guished  the  man  and  his  words.  Like  many  of  the  most 
successful  of  teachers,  Walter  Pater  made  little  direct 
appeal  to  noble  living;  rather,  he  preferred  to  uphold  a 
comely  idealism  by  his  devoted  interpretation  of  the  best 
in  art  and  letters  and  human  conduct.  He  was  beloved 
by  the  finer  strain  of  Oxford  students;  to  their  youthful 
enthusiasms  he  offered  a  distinct  fascination  in  all  that  he 
spoke  or  wrote.  Amid  the  controversies  of  noisier  studies 
Pater  followed  a  peaceful  path  apart,  and  drew  around 
him  the  elect  souls  of  each  new  generation  of  students.  A 
sort  of  latter-day  Plato,  he  seemed,  truly;  and  like  that 
first  of  idealists  and  prophets  of  beauty,  he  left  behind 
him  a  circle  of  followers  who  cherish  his  memory  as  some 
thing  fragrant  and  consecrated.  At  a  university  where 
polemics  and  theology  and  politics  clamored  for  the  stu- 

[75] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


dents'  attention,  it  was  no  small  thing,  wrote  an  editor 
at  Pater's  death,  in  1894,  "to  have  a  scholar  who  stead 
fastly  taught  the  beauty  and  excellence  of  literature 
adorned  by  art,  and  of  art  enlightened  by  literature  for 
their  own  sakes  alone." 

Surely,  of  all  places  in  the  world,  ancient  Oxford 
seems  the  high  home  of  Idealism;  and  in  the  last  two 
generations  Walter  Pater  has  been  Oxford's  Idealist 
par  excellence.  It  was  of  Oxford  that  one  of  Pater's 
student-friends  sang: 

"There  Shelley  dreamed  his  white  Platonic  dreams; 
There  classic  Landor  throve  on  Roman  thought; 
There   Addison   pursued  his  quiet  themes; 

There  smiled  Erasmus,  and  there  Colet  taught. 

"That  is  the  Oxford,  strong  to  charm  us  yet ; 

Eternal   in    her   beauty   and   her   past. 
What  though  her  soul  be  vexed  ?  She  can  forget 
Cares  of  an  hour ;  only  the  great  things  last. 

"Only  the  gracious   air,  only  the  charm, 

And    ancient    might    of    true    humanities ; 

These,  nor  assault  of  man,  nor  time,  can  harm; 

Not  these,  nor  Oxford  with  her  memories. 

"Think  of  her  so !  the  wonderful,  the  fair, 
The   immemorial,   and   the  ever  young: 
The  city  sweet  with  our  forefathers'  care ; 
The  city  where  the  Muses  all  have  sung." 

How  did  Walter  Pater  inculcate  his  idealism?  Chiefly 
through  biography — through  biography,  spiritualized  and 
glorified  for  his  beautiful  purpose,  it  may  be,  but  always 
portraying  some  real  or  imagined  youth  ardently  seeking 
for  perfection.  Thus  it  is  for  youth  that  Pater  holds  his 

[76] 


Oxford '  s  Idealist 


special  charm,  and  for  the  youthful  in  every  heart.  A 
peculiarly  lovable  author  he  becomes  to  those  who  learn 
to  know  him  aright,  to  be  cherished  as  Sidney  and  Shelley 
and  Keats  are  cherished,  as  Wordsworth  and  Emerson 
are  cherished,  for  sake  of  the  messages  conveyed  by  these 
noble  spirits  in  language  of  incomparable  power  and 
beauty. 

"Interpreter  of  beauty,  he  revealed 
Some  subtler  shade  of  unimagined  grace 
In  all  the  loveliness  that  earth  can  yield, 
Of  far  blue  hills,  or  Mona  Lisa's  facet- 
In  Marius,  in   Gaston's  poignant  fame, 
He  has  portrayed  the  spirit's  'gem-like  flame'." 


[77] 


BION  AND  MOSCHUS 


"Would   that   my   father   had  taught   me   the  craft   of  a 

keeper  of  sheep, 
For  so  in  the  shade  of  the  elm-tree,  or  under  the  rocks 

on  the  steep, 
Piping  on  reeds  I  had  sat,  and  had  lulled  my  sorrow  to 

sleep!" 

**  tf*ULY  XII.  Oriental  and  opulent  of  languorous 
^lM-  beauty  is  the  first  idyl  of  Bion,  lamenting  the  death 
of  Adonis.  Lovers  of  our  great  English  threnodies 
find  here  foreshadowings  of  the  elegiac  art  of  Spenser  and 
Milton  and  Shelley. 

All  nature  is  sorrowful, — the  mountains  and  the  oaks, 
the  rivers  and  the  fountains,  the  lovely  flowers;  yea,  the 
Graces  and  Oreads  grieve  with  Aphrodite  for  her  perished 
darling.  Truly  an  immortal  elegy,  whose  wistful  and 
pensive  harmonies  reach  us  across  the  ages ! 

Among  versions  of  Bion  and  Moschus,  that  of  Lloyd 
Mifflin, — a  poet's  own  re-making,  rather  than  too  close  a 
transcript, — commends  itself;  it  is  the  work  of  one  who 
in  his  own  original  verse  has  shown  himself  unmistakably 
of  the  pastoral  brotherhood.  In  ten  sonnets  Mr.  Mifflin 
modernizes  The  Lament  for  Adonis: 

"Gone  is  that  golden  voice  of  mellowest  tone, 
Perished   the   love-light  of   his   glowing  eyes, 
And    I    am   left   all   desolate   and    alone!" 

Thus  laments  the  inconsolable  Cypris. 

[78] 


Bion  and  Moschus 


"Through  the  lone  woodlands  is  her  anguish  borne." 

In  the  very  spirit  of  Sicilian  pastoral  song  is  this 
passage  from  Sonnet  IV: 

"Ifoe,  <woe  for  Cyprisf  all  the  mountains  say; 
While  all  the  oaks,  from  every  ancient  limb, 
Make  solemn  answer,   Woe,  ah,  woe  for  him! 

And  mourning  fills  the  groves,  and  glooms  the  day. 

The  murmurous  rivers  purling  in  the  vale 
Moan  for  lorn  Aphrodite  as  they  go." 

Many  a  happy  line  and  descriptive  phrase  adorns  these 
sonnets,  as  this  of  Adonis: 

"Following  thy  hounds  at  earliest  flush  of   dawn 
While  in  the  fern  yet  sleeps  the  dappled  fawn." 

In  Mr.  Mifflin's  sonnet-versions  from  Moschus  there 
abound  the  same  sure  felicity  and  fine  poetic  touch ;  here 
is  his  beautiful  fourth  sonnet  from  Europa  and  the  Bull: 

"Then  timid  she  arose  and  went  to  seek 
The  maidens  of  her  train, — the  lily  girls 
Whose   loosely-filleted    and   wandering  curls 
Clustered    around    each   glowing,   rosy  cheek ; 

Daughters  that  noble  sires  plain  bespeak, 

With  voices  sweeter  than  the  morning  merles, — 
Fresh  buds  of  rarest  maidenhood,   the  pearls 
Of  purple   Lyre, — sea-crowned   queen   antique. 

In  all   Europa's  sports  they  would  engage, 

And  their  most  beauteous  bodies  oft  would  they 
Bathe  where  the  silver  rivers  meet  the  sea, 

Or  in  the  dance  float  on  in  bright  array; 

Then    on    some    flower-marauding   pilgrimage 
Together   pluck  the   lilies  of  the   lea." 

[79] 


Brandy  wine  Day. 


Here,  again,  one  would  fain  linger  to  write  down  cer 
tain  lines  and  half-lines  from  these  sonnets,  as — 

"they   heard  the  tunes 
Sung  by  the  surge  across  the  sleeping  mere." 

This,  of  the  Bull,  might  well  have  come  from  Spenser's 
quill : 

"He  came  into  the  meadow   in  his  pride 
Among  the  beauteous  daughters  gathered  there; 
And  they  had  yearnings  deep  to  touch  his  hair 
And  lay  their  white  hands  on  his  silken  hide." 

What  a  sense  of  lorn  and  remote  and  helpless  grief  in 
this! — 

"But  when  no  longer  landmarks  could  be  seen, — 
Far  from  surf-beaten  headlands  of  her  home, 
Or   lofty   cliff  well-loved,   along   the   shore, — 
When  all  was  moving  mounds  and  wastes  of  green 
With  dark  illimitable   fields   of  foam, 
Her   voice   brake   forth." 

The  dirge  for  Bion  has  been  made  into  twelve  sonnets 
by  Lloyd  Mifflin.  I  must  refrain  from  further  quotation, 
— only  expressing  the  hope  that,  as  this  poet  has  proven 
himself  so  thoroughly  at  one  with  the  Sicilian  pastor- 
alists,  he  may  some  day  turn  the  idyls  of  Theocritus  into 
melodious  sonnets  for  our  delight. 


[80] 


ONE  OF  THE  ELIZABETHANS 

JULY  XIII 

HN  old  author  of  delightful  quality  whose  volume 
has  a  place  of  honor  in  my  summer  library  by  the 
Brandywine,  is  Robert  Greene. 

Among  the  fellows  of  Shakespeare,  this  author  en 
dears  himself  to  me  for  his  innocent  fancy  and  wit,  his 
praise  of  lowly  contentment,  and  his  portrayal  of  English 
country  scenes.  He  gives  us,  too,  those  intimate  autobio 
graphic  touches  which  are  so  rare  with  the  shadowy  Eliza 
bethans.  Thus  he  tells  of  his  college  career, — he  attended 
St.  John's,  Cambridge,  later  the  Alma  Mater  in  turn  of 
Jonson  and  Herrick  and  Wordsworth, — and  of  his  early 
London  days,  with  engaging  frankness. 

"Being  at  the  University,"  he  writes,  "I  light  among 
wags  .  .  .  with  whom  I  consumed  the  flower  of  my 
youth.  After  I  had  by  degrees  proceeded  Master  of  Arts, 
I  left  the  university  and  away  to  London,  where  I  be 
came  an  author  of  plays  and  a  penner  of  love  pamphlets, 
so  that  I  soon  grew  famous  in  that  quality,  that  who  for 
that  trade  grown  so  ordinary  about  London  as  Robin 
Greene?" 

Italian  love  tales  were  in  vogue,  and  the  English  wits 
copied  their  mannerisms  and  their  intricate  plots.  Fickle 
swains,  rich  old  men,  faithful  nurses,  sighing  damsels,  are 
found  in  all  these  stories.  The  conversations  are  artificial, 
adorned  with  alliteration,  and  enriched  with  allusions  to 
Jove,  Ulysses,  Jason,  yEneas,  Ceres,  and  all  the  ancient 
hierarchy. 

[81] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


Mamillia.  A  Mirrour  or  looking  glasse  for  the  Ladies 
of  Englande  (1583)  seems  to  have  been  Greene's  earliest 
venture.  The  background  is  Italian,  the  common  scene 
for  many  of  the  romances  and  dramas  of  the  period,  and 
familiar  to  us  in  Orsino's  palace  and  Olivia's  garden,  or 
in  the  wondrous  moonlight  musings  of  Lorenzo  and  Jes 
sica,  or  the  woeful  tragedy  of  Verona's  deathless  lovers. 

The  Myrrour  of  Modestie  (1584),  Morando  ( 1584), 
GwydoniuSj  The  Garde  of  Fancie  (1584),  Planetomachia 
0585), — these  romances  our  author  poured  forth  with 
ready  pen.  Not  until  Marlowe's  Tamburlaine  startled 
the  literary  world  with  its  "high  astounding  terms,"  in 
1586  or  '87,  is  Greene  known  to  have  turned  to  the  writ 
ing  of  plays  and  to  have  mingled  dramatic  with  narrative 
authorship. 

An  example  of  Greene's  mastery  of  the  prevailing 
euphuism  of  his  day  may  be  found  in  this  epistle  (letters 
and  soliloquies  being  interspersed  frequently  in  all  such 
works),  wherein  a  lady  rejects  an  offer  of  marriage, — 

"Maister  Gwydonius,  your  letter  being  more  hastelie 
received  than  heartilie  read,  I  perceive  by  the  contents  that 
you  are  stil  perplexed  with  your  pen-sick  passions,  and  that 
your  disease  is  incurable,  for  if  your  paines  may  be  appeased 
or  your  maladie  mittigated  by  no  medicine  but  by  my 
meanes,  you  are  like  either  to  pay  your  due  unto  death  or 
stil  to  linger  in  distresse.  My  cunning  is  to  smal  to  en 
terprise  the  composition  of  anie  secrete  simples,  and  my 
calling  to  great  to  become  a  Phisition  to  such  a  paltering 
patient."  This  curious  letter  exhibits  not  only  typical 
alliteration,  but  cunningly  inwrought  parallelism  and  dou 
ble  antithesis.  We  know  how  tellingly  such  stilted  court- 

[82] 


One  of  the  Elizabethans 


speech  was  satirized  by  Shakespeare  in  the  mincing  dainti 
ness  of  Osric,  who,  to  use  his  own  words  to  Laertes,  was 
in  truth,  "an  absolute  gentleman,  full  of  most  excellent 
differences,  of  very  soft  society,  and  great  showing." 

In  spite  of  much  that  is  amusingly  artificial  in  these 
little  stories  of  Greene's,  there  is  yet  in  them  all, — and  in 
his  plays  as  well, — an  underlying  ethical  quality,  a  sympa 
thy  with  what  is  pure  and  noble,  that  redeems  them  in 
full.  Thus  Perirnedes  the  Blacke-Smith  (1588)  repre 
sents  a  poor  smith  and  his  wife  as  telling  stories  which  in 
"homely  dialogue,  romance,  and  song  teach  patience  in  ad 
versity,  the  just  restraints  of  life,  true  love,  and  peace  in 
settled  low  content."  In  his  dedication  Greene  describes 
the  piece  as  "the  tattle  between  a  smith  and  his  wjfe,  full 
of  diverse  precepts  interlaced  with  delightful  histories." 

"Fair  is  my  love  for  April  in  her  face,"  a  song  in  Peri- 
medes,  strikes  that  note  of  delightful  naturalism  which 
blossomed  into  such  wealth  of  beauty  in  the  hands  of 
Greene  and  his  compeers. 

"So  as  she  shows,  she  seems  the  budding  rose, 
Yet  sweeter  far  than  is  an  earthly  flower," — 

"Ah,  when  she  sings,  all  music  else  be  still, 

For  none  must  be  compared  to  her  note; 
Ne'er  breathed  such  glee  from  Philomela's  bill, 

Nor  from  the  morning-singer's  swelling  throat": — 

In  the  freshness  and  buoyancy  of  such  lines  one  finds 
the  charm  that  appealed  to  Lowell,  who  said  of  certain  of 
Greene's  verses  that  they  have  "all  the  innocence  of  the 
Old  Age  in  them." 

Into  his  title-pages  Greene  put  a  deal  of  quaint  fancy. 

[83] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


A  group  of  moral  tales  dealing  with  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins 
(1591)  he'entitled 

Greenes  Farewell  to  Folly,  sent  to  Courtiers  and 
Scholars,  as  a  president  to  warn  them  from  the  -vain  de 
lights  that  draws  youths  on  to  repentance. 

Although  our  poet  dismissed  his  Farewell  as  "the  last 
I  meane  ever  to  publish  of  such  superficiall  labours,"  yet  he 
set  into  the  piece  a  song  which  he  never  surpassed  for  right 
sentiment  and  simple  charm ; — a  noble  lady,  who  has  taken 
service  as  a  country  maid,  sings  thus  of  "Content," 

"Sweete   are   the   thoughts   that  savour   of   content, 

The  quiet  mind  is  richer  than   a  crowne ; 
Sweete  are  the  nights  in  careless  slumber  spent, 

The  poor  estate  scornes  fortune's  angry  frowne ; 
Such  sweet  content,  such  mindes,  such  sleep,  such  bliss, 
Beggars  enjoy,  when  Princes  oft  doe  miss. 

"The  homelie  house  that  harbours  quiet  reste, 
The  cottage  that  affordes  no  pride  nor  care, 

The  meane  that  grees  with  countrie  musick  beste, 
The  sweete  consort  of  mirthe  and  modest  fare, 

Obscured  life  sets  down  a  type  of  blisse; 

A  minde  content  both  crown  and  kingdom  is." 

There  is  surely  a  very  engaging  quality  in  Robert 
Greene ;  he  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  the  minor  Eliz 
abethans.  In  his  sincerity  and  his  childlike  grace  I  think 
ot  him  as  a  brother  of  Chaucer  or  Herrick.  And  I  like, 
too,  that  touch  of  pious  humor,  almost  Puritan,  which  led 
him  to  give  us  such  ample  and  very  fetching  title-pages 
as  this  sermon-in-little  which  forms  the  title  of  one  of  his 
prose  pamphlets: 

[84] 


One  of  the  Elizabethans 


Greenes  Never  Too  Late;  or,  A  Powder  of  Expe 
riences,  sent  to  all  youthfull  Gentlemen,  to  root  out  the 
infectious  follies,  that  over-reaching  conceits,  foster  in  the 
springtime  of  their  youth,  decyphering  in  a  true  English 
historic,  those  particular  vanities,  that  with  their  frostie 
vapours  nip  the  blossoms  of  everie  fipe  braine,  from  at- 
teining  to  his  intended  perfection,  as  pleasant,  as  profitable 
being  a  right  pumicestone,  apt  to  race  out  idleness  with 
delight,  and  follie  with  admonition. 


[85] 


HOME  SCENES 


JULY  XIV 

(To  W.  H.  R.) 

THOUGHT  of  thee,  old   friend,  and  knew  thee 

wise, 
True  lover  of  our  Chester  County  skies. 

Why  should  I  read  the  golden  page  of  Keats 
When  all  our  fields  are  rich  with  balmy  sweets, 
When  all  our  woodland  ways  are  fair  with  flowers 
And  birds  that  sing  away  the  summer  hours? 
Why  over  Walton's  "Angler"  should  I  dream 
When  here  beside  our  soft  and  silver  stream 
The  meadows  are  as  green,  the  heavens  as  blue 
As  ever  Walton's  old-wrorld  rivers  knew? 
Why  ponder  Shelley  with  such  fine  despair 
When  Newlin  sunsets  are  as  rosy-fair 
And  our  great  hill  as  lovely  landscapes  yields 
As   Shelley   knew   in   well-loved    English   fields? 

"Sweet  Themmes!  runne  softly,  till  I  end  my  Song,"— 

Ah  me,  the  centuries  have  rolled  along 

Since  Spenser  sang  his  marriage-song  divine; 

Yet  here  beside  the  dreamy  Brandywine 

In  this  green  oaken  glade,  his  lovely  lay 

Sounds  its  immortal  melody  to-day. 

By  these  green  softly-sloping  Newlin  hills 

Are  blooms  as  sweet  as  Herrick's  daffodils, 

As  fragrant  here  the  roses  in  the  rain 

[86] 


Home  Scenes 


As  Herrick  loved  in  any  Devon  lane ; 
And  I  who  worship  Wordsworth  over  all 
And  to  his  wondrous  verse  am  willing  thrall, 
Were  not  more  happy  in  Westmoreland  woods 
Than  in  these  long-loved  oaken  solitudes, 
In  Cumbrian  pastures  find  not  deeper  charm 
Than  in  the  tranquil  fields  of  this  old  farm. 

Last  night  I  mused  o'er  many  a  golden  lyric 
Of  Wordsworth  and  of  Keats  and  quaint  old  Herrick 
Their  old-world  music  carried  me  in  dream 
To  many  an  English  mead  and  English  stream ;  — 
But  when  this  morn  I  watched  the  soft  sun  shine 
On  green  pools  of  the  sleepy  Brandywine, 
I  thought  of  thee,  old  friend,  and  knew  thee  wise, 
True  lover  of  our  Chester  County  skies. 
— Wander  afar  we  may,  but  in  the  end 
'Tis  Chester  County  holds  our  hearts,  old  friend! 


[87] 


THE  CHARM  OF  FLOWER-NAMES 

I'ULY  XV.  One  may  often  behold  at  his  own  doors 
li  A-  the  beauty  that  he  seeks  in  vain  abroad.  So  with 
us  and  the  wild  plants  of  our  own  Brandywine 
meadowr.  Until  a  botanical  friend  of  ours, — who  tem 
pered  his  devotion  to  Virgil  and  Catullus  and  Cicero  with 
an  ever-increasing  friendship  with  our  Pennsylvania  flora 
— discovered  for  us  the  riches  that  lay  so  close,  we  little 
knew  the  possibilities  of  these  acres  where  the  cattle  feed 
all  summer.  The  buttercups  and  daisies,  ironweed  and 
wild  carrot,  that  blow  here  in  their  seasons,  we  knew  well ; 
but  when  we  learned  that  more  than  one  hundred  and 
fifty  plants  had  their  home  in  this  grassy  plain,  it  seemed 
a  revelation.  To  copy  the  names  of  flowers  has  ever  been 
a  delight  to  me ;  but  like  Horace  Walpole  I  love  old-fash 
ioned  flowers  too  well  to  call  them  hard  names, — so  I  give 
the  fragrant  garland  here  in  my  Hour-Glass  according  to 
the  sweet  and  familiar  titles  that  were  dear  to  our  grand 
mothers. 

Some  of  the  plants,  then,  found  by  our  friend  and 
follower  of  Dr.  Darlington,  were  the:e, — wild  clematis, 
meadow-rue,  marsh-cress,  blue  violet,  Bouncing  Bet,  purs 
lane,  St.  John's-wort,  wood  sorrel,  jewel-weed,  sumac, 
rabbit-foot  clover,  cinquefoil,  swamp  rose,  wild  rose,  haw 
thorn,  service-berry,  willow-herb,  evening  primrose,  silky 
cornel,  May  apple,  golden-rod,  ragweed,  cocklebur,  Span 
ish  needles,  yarrow,  daisy,  thistle,  dandelion,  Indian  to 
bacco,  ground  cherry,  mullein,  butter-and-eggs,  vervain, 
wood-sage,  peppermint,  corn-mint,  basil,  pennyroyal,  sage, 

[88] 


'The  Charm  of  Flower-Names 

ground  ivy,  heal-all,  motherwort,  sheep  sorrel,  spurge, 
three-seeded  Mercury,  clear-weed,  hornbeam,  ladies' 
tresses,  dog-flower,  arrowhead,  winter  fern. 

Truly  a  goodly  and  a  redolent  list! — and  many  of  the 
names  suggestive  of  the  ancient  brews  and  cordials  which 
our  great-grandmothers  concocted  from  their  field  plants 
for  the  betterment  of  the  family  health. 

"The  search  for  these  dear  inhabitants  of  field  and 
forest,"  writes  our  friend,  "lends  to  life  a  new  interest, 
which  it  is  a  pity  so  many  should  miss."  These  wrords  I 
take  as  a  gentle  reproof  of  my  own  sorry  ignorance  of 
scientific  botany.  Wild  flowers  and  garden  flowers  I  love 
for  their  own  beautiful  and  fragrant  sakes,  and  for  the 
literary  and  ancestral  associations  linked  inseparably  with 
so  many  of  them,  brought  as  they  often  were  from  the 
old  English  gardens;  but  as  for  the  titles  which  the  learned 
have  given  them, — there  I  am  sadly  lacking,  and  must  go 
on  speaking  of  rosemary  and  rue,  lavender,  marigolds  and 
daffodils, — like  Perdita, — to  the  end  of  my  days. 

How  fascinating  to  ponder  the  charm  that  simple 
names  hold  for  us! 

— "Endymion, 

The  very  music  of  the  name  has  gone 
Into  my  being!" 

Thus  mused  Keats  when  entering  with  delight  upon 
his  writing  of  the  loveliest  of  latter-day  epics.  Some  isle 
of  Greece,  some  English  pastoral  river,  some  half-remem 
bered  girl's  name  in  an  old  song, — these  have  their  unique 
enchantment ;  our  thinking  is  imperceptibly  moulded  by 

[89] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


just  that  accident,  and  Lemnos  or  Wye  or  Dianeme  speak 
to  our  mood  as  no  other  words  could  possibly  speak.  Across 
these  wind-swept  hills  of  green  Newlin  the  fancy  journeys 
to  the  sister-townships,  near  and  far — Fallowfield,  Marl- 
borough,  Uwchlan,  Londonderry,  Warwick,  little  Thorn- 
bury,  and  old  Kennett's  blissful  meadows.  Their  beauti 
ful  Old-World  names  are  indeed  typical  of  the  life  of 
their  inhabitants,  who  still  happily  retain  many  of  the 
traits  and  conservative  thought  of  those  far-off  forefathers 
who  came  over  sea  from  the  English  and  Welsh  and  Irish 
counties,  and  here  named  their  rich  farms  and  their  vil 
lages  and  territorial  divisions  with  the  beloved  home- 
names, — the  same  instinct  that  caused  them  to  cherish 
the  marigolds  and  roses  and  hollyhocks  and  other  sweet 
old  familiar  friends  of  the  ancient  gardens  of  their  grand 
mothers,  and  often  to  give  to  the  New-World  trees  and 
birds  and  wild  flowers  names  endeared  through  long  asso 
ciation.  I  confess  to  a  thrill  at  the  very  thought  of 
all  this ; — it  has  a  strange  fascination ! 

In  the  drowsy  old  gardens  of  our  Pennsylvania  home 
steads  there  is  peace  ineffable.  Here  broods  the  Silence 
praised  of  Maeterlinck, — and  has  brooded  since  long  be 
fore  that  young  dreamer's  day.  In  an  ancient  Garden,  if 
anywhere,  the  enchantment  of  names  is  strong! 

The  flowers  of  that  old,  old  Garden  of  my  childhood, 
— they  haunt  me  with  faded  and  ghostly  beauty. 

O  there  were  scores  of  sweet  old-fashioned  blooms 

Dear  for  the  very  fragrance  of  their  names, — 
Poppies  and  gillyflowers  and  four-o 'clocks, 
Cowslips  and  candytuft  and  heliotrope  and  hollyhocks, 

[90] 


The  Charm  of  Flower-Names 

Harebells  and  peonies  and  dragon-head, 

Petunias,  scarlet  sage  and  bergamot, 
Verbenas,  ragged-robins,  soft  gold-thread, 

The  bright  primrose  and  pale  forget-me-not, 
Wall-flowers  and  crocuses  and  columbines, 
Narcissus,  asters,  hyacinths,  and  honeysuckle  vines, 

Foxgloves  and  marigolds  and  mignonette, 
Dahlias  and  lavender  and  damask  rose, — 

Your  fragrances  and  colors  haunt  me  yet, 

In  memoried  summers  still  your  radiance  glows; 

My  childhood  held  no  happier  hours  for  me 

Than  those  amid  your  loveliness,  O  Flowers  of  Mem 
ory! 


[91] 


MIDSUMMER 


"To  a  tranquil  one 

Who  leans  through  open  windows  of  the  leaves, 
There's,  either  way,  the  gold  of  wheaten  sheaves." 

ULY  XVI.  The  opulent  landscape  of  midsummer 
is  indeed  compelling  in  its  tranquil  beauty.  The 
gleaming  Brandywine  idles  among  the  low  mead 
ows,  its  course  marked  by  the  silver-green  of  many 
water-willows.  The  deep  blue-green  of  the  corn  just  put 
ting  forth  soft  tassellings,  the  luscious  emerald  or  gold- 
green  of  the  ripening  acres  of  millet,  the  wheat  fields  yel 
low  with  stubble  and  brown  with  heaped-up  sheaves,  the 
stately  shell-bark  trees  standing  out  in  far  pastures,  and 
the  great  stretches  of  silent,  dreaming  woods  paling  to 
blue  on  the  distant  horizon, — all  this  forms  an  idyllic  pic 
ture  of  surpassing  charm.  Up  on  the  opposite  hillside  one 
white  cottage  stands  out  from  the  dense  green,  giving  that 
single  suggestion  of  human  interest  which  so  satisfies  the 
eye  as  it  meditates  a  pastoral  landscape.  Meadow-larks 
raise  their  sorrowful  keen  cries  among  the  stubble,  bob- 
whites  whistle  clearly,  and  the  brooding  voice  of  the  ring 
dove  comes  at  intervals  from  the  wood-edge. 

The  trusty  horses  move  from  pile  to  pile  of  sheaves 
around  the  sides  of  the  field.  When  the  load  is  complete, 
the  wain  comes  rumbling  down  the  hill  with  a  screeching 
of  locked  wheels,  and  enveloped  in  a  fog  of  gray  dust  rolls 
swiftly  up  the  barn  bridge,  where  the  rich  burden  is  tossed 
off  into  the  wide  mows.  Across  the  hills  other  men  are 

[92] 


Midsummer 


performing  the  same  harvest  operations  in  other  fields ; 
and  in  this  fair  and  fertile  valley  is  enacted  one  of  the 
epics  of  labor, — man  gleaming  from  the  bosom  of  Mother 
Earth  bounteous  sustenance  for  the  winter  to  come, — the 
ancient,  homely,  eternal  theme  of  the  poets,  from  Virgil, 
singing  so  affectionately  of 

"Wheat   and   woodland,   tilth   and   vineyard,   hive   and  horse 
and    herd," 

to  our  English  Spenser  and  Herrick  and  their  followers. 


[93] 


DREAM   SHIPS 


JULY  XVII 

'HE  great  white  ships  go  sailing 

Above   the   Brandywine, 
O'er  leagues  of  azure  trailing 
Their  fleet  in  fleecy  line, 
Then    disappear    forever 
Above  our  little  river 
In  silver  mist  and  amethyst 
High  o'er  the  Brandywine. 

I  watch  them  as  they  wander 
High  o'er  the  Brandywine, 

And  see  them  vanish  yonder 
In  strange  and  ghostly  line. 
Their  masses  none  may  number 
In  waking  or  in  slumber, 

So  far  aloft  their  passage  soft 
Above  the  Brandywine. 

The  great  white  ships  go  streaming 
Above  the  Brandywine, 

Their  phantom  pennons  gleaming 
In  pure  and  snowy  line, 
With  sure  and  steady  steering 
That  knows  no  wreck  nor  veering 

At  golden  noon  or  'neath  the  moon, 
High  o'er  the  Brandywine. 

[94] 


Dream  Ships 


Through  realms  unknown  to  mortals 

High  o'er  the  Brandywine, 
Up  under  Heaven's  portals, 

They   sail   in   stately   line; 

Through  rainbow  and  through  thunder, 

Through  airy  fields  of  wonder, 
Their  constant  way  they  hold  all  day 

Above  the  Brandywine. 

Through  dawn's  enchanted  splendor 

Above  the  Brandywine, 
Through  sunsets  rich  and  tender, 

They  pass  in  wondrous  line. 

In  working  and  in  play-time, 

In  harvesting  and  hay-time, 
Right  on  they  stream,  those  ships  of  dream, 

High  o'er  the  Brandywine. 

O  mighty  cloud-ships  sailing 
High  o'er  the  Brandywine, 
In  solemn  glory  trailing 

Your  heavenly  battle  line, — 

Above  our  little  river 

Unresting  and  forever, 
Your  course  you  hold  o'er  seas  of  gold 

Above  the  Brandywine! 


[95] 


AN  "EXQUISITE  SISTER" 


"Methought 

Her  very  presence  such  a  sweetness  breathed, 
That  flowers,  and  trees,  and  even  the  silent  hills, 
And  every  thing  she  looked  on,  should  have  had 
An  intimation  how  she  bore  herself 
Towards  them,  and  to  all  creatures.    God  delights 
In  such  a  being." 

ULY  XVIII.  Dorothy  Wordsworth,  whom  her 
brother  thus  portrayed,  was  the  woman  whose 
wonderful  influence  over  him  for  five  and  fifty 
long  years  lent  to  his  poetry  certain  height  and  depth  and 
brightness  otherwise  perhaps  unrealized ;  she  was  the  "ex 
quisite  sister,  ...  a  woman  indeed !  In  mind  I 
mean,  and  heart  ...  In  every  motion  her  most  in 
nocent  soul  outbeams," — of  Coleridge's  sympathetic  de 
scription. 

To  read  in  Dorothy  Wordsworth's  Journals  is  to  see 
more  perfectly  into  the  special  charm  of  the  scenery  of 
England  and  Scotland,  and  to  come  to  fuller  apprehension 
of  Wordsworth's  lyrical  and  meditative  verse.  Coleridge 
speaks  of  "her  eye  watchful  in  minutest  observation  of  Na 
ture."  When  she  poured  out  her  emotion  in  the  pages  of 
her  journals,  it  was  in  the  unmistakable  Wordsworthian 
manner  of  minute  and  loving  appreciation,  as  in  the  open 
ing  sentences,  written  January  20,  1798:  "The  green 
paths  down  the  hill-sides  are  channels  for  streams.  The 
young  wheat  is  streaked  by  silver  lines  of  water  running 

[96] 


An  "Exquisite  Sister'' 


between  the  ridges,  the  sheep  are  gathered  together  on  the 
slopes.  After  the  wet  dark  days,  the  country  seems  more 
populous.  It  peoples  itself  in  the  sunbeams.  The  garden, 
mimic  of  spring,  is  gay  with  flowers." 

Like  some  rich  abundant  passage  from  Theocritus 
seems  her  enumeration  in  many  an  entry  in  these  incom 
parable  Journals.  She  notes  the  redbreasts  singing  in  the 
garden,  a  solitary  sheep  in  a  lonely  field,  young  lasses  on 
the  hills  in  holiday  gear,  mothers  with  their  little  ones, 
tiny  insects  spinning  in  the  sunshine,  daisies  in  the  grass, 
hazels  in  blossom,  honeysuckles  budding,  an  early  straw 
berry  flower  under  a  hedge; — all  this  on  a  late  day  of  win 
ter.  Homely  activities  of  the  kitchen-garden  are  mixed 
with  picturesque  observations,  just  as  they  occur;  and  the 
phrasing  is  of  the  simplest,  or  colorful,  or  magic  in  beauty, 
as  fits  the  case.  What  are  the  records  in  Dorothy's  pages 
for  the  month  of  June,  1800? — "A  sweet  mild  morning 
Read  ballads.  Went  to  church."  Next  day,  Monday, 
instead  of  wash-tubs,  we  hear  of  poetical  meditations; 
"I  sate  a  long  time  to  watch  the  hurrying  waves.  .  .  . 
The  waves  round  about  the  little  Island  seemed  like  a 
dance  of  spirits  that  rose  out  of  the  water."  She  records 
fine  moonlight  frequently,  and  writes:  "God  be  thanked, 
I  want  not  society  by  a  moonlit  lake.'  One  June  even 
ing  Dorothy  fetched  home  lemon-thyme  and  planted  it  by 
moonlight.  Again  we  find  her  sticking  peas,  watering 
the  garden,  planting  brocoli,  sowing  kidney-beans  and 
spinach,  noticing  wild  roses  in  the  hedges;  and,  one  warm, 
cloudy  morning,  walking  with  William  in  a  valley  all  per 
fumed  with  the  gale  and  wild  thyme,  and  through  wood 
lands  bright  with  yellow  broom. 

[97] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


No  prose  can  be  more  delightful  reading  than  these 
passages  that  shed  unconsciously  so  much  light  upon  the 
wondrous  poetry  of  the  man  who  was  blest  with  an  "ex 
quisite  sister." 


[98] 


VIRGIL  OF  THE  ECLOGUES 

JULY  XIX 

OEAR  VIRGIL,  could  there  be 
More  deep  felicity 

Than  under  oaks  and  elms  delighted  lying, 
To  hear  the  shepherd  swains 
Piping  their  rustic  strains 
In  amaboean  measures  softly  dying; — 
To  hear  the  hum  of  bees 
Below  the  orchard  trees 

And  woodland  doves  in  woodland  shadows  singing; 
To  watch  the  slow  herds  feed 
Across  the  grassy  mead 
Where  harvest  cheer  and  harvest  hymns  are  ringing! 

Dear  Virgil,  through  all  years 

Thy  tranquil  charm  endears 

These  tranquil  woods  and  fields  of  my  affection ; 

Each  shepherd  song  of  thine 

Beside  the  Brandywine 

Touches  my  heart  with  kindly  recollection. 

O  let  me  never  cease 

To  love  thy  pastoral  peace, 

Thy  tranquil  charm  and  happiness  undying; 

Still  let  me  dream  of  thee 

In  deep  felicity 

Beneath  thy  oaks  and  elms  delighted  lying! 

Think    of    Young    Milton    pensively    meditating    the 
"thankless  Muse"  beside  some  silver  brook  in  the  Horton 

[99] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


fields,  touching  the  tender  stops  of  various  quills  and 
portraying  in  matchless  verse  those  country  labors  and 
landscapes,  antique  pastimes  and  upland  reveries,  that 
enchanted  his  poet's  vision,  or  anon  touching  with  wealth 
of  lettered  reminiscence  the  deeper  tone  of  vague  melan 
choly  that  is  inseparable  from  the  cultivated  mind  musing 
the  innocent  joys  and  sorrows  of  the  rural  world.  If  we 
can  thus  fancy  Milton  amid 

"Such  sights  as  Youthful  Poets  dream 
On   Summer  eves  by  haunted  stream," 

we  shall,  I  believe,  come  nearer  than  otherwise  we  might, 
to  seeing  in  imagination's  eye  the  far-off  figure  of  young 
Virgil  wandering  under  beechen  shades  beside  smooth- 
sliding  Mincius,  while  he  sets  to  stately  hexameter  music 
his  pleasing  dreams  of  shepherd-life  in  that  old,  old  Italy 
of  his  that  seems  to  us  so  remote,  so  bathed  in  the  hoary 
mists  of  ancient  days. 

Antique  rural  Italy  seems  to  live  again  to  one  who 
will  but  roam  for  a  few  days  among  the  groves  and 
farms  of  the  old  land.  The  little  stone-built  villages, 
whose  origins  are  lost  in  forgetfulness, — old  even  in  Vir 
gil's  day, — the  deep-grassed  meadows  where  simple  rustics 
tend  the  white  flocks,  the  old  brown  fields  tilled  and 
reaped  for  century  on  century, — these  may  in  some  meas 
ure  put  the  traveller  in  touch  with  the  Mantua  of  Vir 
gil's  bucolic  songs.  At  every  turn  he  will  thrill  to  find  the 
Eclogues, — their  color  and  setting, — re-pictured.  In  yon 
der  contented  peasant's  little  grange  he  may  see  again  the 
rustic  happiness  of  Tityrus,  whose  fence  of  sallow-trees 
was  fsaught  with  flowers,  whose  thrifty  bees  lulled  the 

[100] 


Virgil  of  the  Eclogues 


shepherd  with  soft  murmur,  while  from  lofty  elms  the 
ring-doves  moaned  and  told  their  gentle  grief. 

Peace  and  golden  tranquillity  are  here,  if  anywhere, — 

"Low  of  cattle  and  song  of  birds, 
And   health  and  quiet  and   loving  words." 

Here  the  shepherd's  desires  are  fulfilled, — country  fare 
of  curds  and  cream,  brimming  milk  pails,  clustering  grapes, 
hives  that  drip  with  honey,  pastures  for  the  flossy  heifers 
and  the  woolly  dams  with  their  tender  little  ones.  Yon 
der  youth  beneath  the  ilex  might  be  another  Corydon 
chanting  to  Alexis  and  telling  how  the  nymphs  are  bring 
ing  for  him  their  osier  crates  heaped  high  with  lilies  and 
violets  and  poppies,  with  narcissus  and  fragrant  fennel, 
twining  them  with  casia  and  choosing  the  delicate  hyacinth 
and  marsh-marigold.  Downy-cheeked  quinces  will  Cory 
don  give,  and  the  chestnuts  dear  to  his  Amaryllis,  and 
waxen  plums, — all  blending  their  fragrance  and  luscious 
bloom. 

Amant  alter na  Camenae! — it  sounds  across  all  the 
centuries;  Menalcas  and  Damoetas  engage  again  in  rustic 
rivalry,  with  friendly  Palaemon  as  umpire.  Again  Mopsus 
and  his  fellow-shepherd  lament  the  death  of  Daphnis  and 
exchange  gifts, — a  pipe  and  shepherd's  crook.  Again  does 
Corydon  triumph  in  the  contest  of  pastoral  minstrelsy. 

Ex  illo  Corydon  Corydon  est  tempore  nobis.  Ah,  truly, 
amid  the  hum  of  bees  and  drone  of  locusts,  o'er  sheep- 
downs  sweet  with  flowery  thyme  and  daffodils,  in  that 
magical  land  of  poesy  and  dream, — pass  before  memory's 
eye,  now  moist  with  immemorial  reminiscence,  Virgil's 
shepherd  swains  and  lovely  girls,  Tityrus  and  Meliboeus, 

[101] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


Corydon  and  Damon  and  Menalcas,  Amyntas  and  Lyci- 
das,  Galatea,  Neaera  and  Phyllis,  Nysa  and  Amaryllis, 
like  young  figures  from  the  Golden  Age.  What  enchant 
ment  is  theirs,  what  pathos,  what  immortal  charm! 


[102] 


ADOWN  THE  BRAND YWINE 

JULY  XX 

®HERE  flows  our  dear  idyllic  Brandywine 
Through   flowery  meadows  green  and  deep  and  fair, 
O  come  in  summer  afternoons  divine! 
Lay  by  thy  load  of  care. 
Who  seeks  for  joy  at  Mother  Nature's  heart, 

From  haste  and  hurry  must  enfranchised  be; 
No  breath   from  noisy  street  or  toiling  mart 
Her  loveliness  must  stain, 
No  memory  of  pain 
Encloud  her  great  and  sweet  simplicity. 

A  land  of  peaceful  quietude  is  this, 

Where  weary-eyed  Ambition  comes  not  near, — 
A  home  of  happiness  and  rural  bliss 

Throughout  the  tranquil  year. 
O  come  and  ramble  in  these  reedy  dells, 

These  barley-fields  and  uplands  sweet  with  hay; 
Come  hear  the  lilies  ring  their  fairy  bells; 
And   by  clear-watered   rills 
That  wimple  down  the  hills, 

And  through  the  tossing  millet  let  us  stray. 

Then  when  the  sun  is  drooping  to  the  west, 
And  all  the  shadows  reach  out  far  and  long, 

When  the  wood-pigeon  by  her  lonely  nest 
Begins  her  plaintive  song, 

[103] 


Erandywine  Days 


We'll  launch  our  boat,  and  laying  by  the  oars, 
Adown  the  Brandywine  we'll  slowly  drift, 
By  grassy  isles,  by  willow-shaded  shores, 
O'er  many  a  glassy  deep 
Where  silence  seems  to  sleep, 
And  down  green  shallows  murmurous  and  swift. 

Wild-roses  frail  are  blowing  by  the  banks, 

Their  faces  imaged  clearly  in  the  tide, 
Rich  tiger-lilies  droop  in  yellow  ranks, 

And  tiny  star-flowers  hide 
Their  tremulous  bells  arnid  tall  nodding  weeds. 

Sweet  buds  we'll  pluck  of  tender  amber  tint 
That  grow  among  the  water-shaken  reeds, 
Or  by  the  rustling  sedge 
Along  the  oozy  edge 

Of  meadows  odorous  with  peppermint. 

Soft  music  shall  enchant  us  as  we  pass, — 

Light  zephyrs  playing  in  the  drooping  trees, 
Thin  chirping  voices  hidden  in  the  grass, 

And  lily-haunting  bees. 
We'll  hear  the  jocund  robin  far  and  faint 

From  where  he  chirps  'mid  orchard-shadows  cool, 
Or  catch  some  lonely  heron's  harsh  complaint 
As  round  a  bank  of  fern 
We  sweep  with  sudden  turn 

And  find  him  fishing  in  a  gravelly  pool. 

We'll   float  where   swaying  cedars  scent  the  air, 
The  haunt  of  squirrels  and  forest-loving  birds; 

[104] 


A  down  the  Brandy  wine 


Then  out  again  by  luscious  pastures  fair 

Grazed  by  white-breasted  herds. 
And  here  and  there  beneath  low  willow  trees 

We'll  pass  old  fishermen  of  sober  mien, 
Who  watch  their  drifting  corks  in  blissful  ease 
Or  look  with  lazy  eyes 
Along  the  cloudless  skies, 
Well  pleased  with  these  long  summer  days  serene. 

Thus  while  the  loitering  current  bears  our  boat 

Adown  the  Brandywine's  enchanted  stream, 
In  happy  reverie  we'll  smoothly  float 

And  through  the  twilight  dream, — 
Until  we  see  the  languid  yellow  moon 

Above  the  drowsy  hills  serenely  glide, 
While  frogs  begin  to  chant  their  evening  tune, 
And  rose  and  wren  and  bee 
Are  resting  silently 

And  warm  peace  floods  the  sleeping  countryside. 


[105] 


AN  HOUR  WITH  HERRICK 

JULY  XXI 

'ERRICK,  thine  Hesperides 
Liveth  through  the  centuries, 
And  thine  ever-dewy  page 
Brings  delight  to  youth  and  age. 
There  the  rosy  girls  and  boys 
Share  the  homely  country  joys, — 
Harvest-homes  and  revellings, 
Quintels,  wakes  and  wassailings. 
There  we  see  in  dreamings  rare 
Silvia  and  Sappho  fair, 
Corinna  who  at  break  of  day 
Went  with  thee  to  fetch  in  May, 
Anthea  and  Perilla  tall, 
And  Julia  loveliest  of  all. 
In  thy  leafy  Devon  lanes 
Piping  quaint  bucolic  strains, 
Neat-herds  all  their  love  express 
To  the  buxom  neat-herdess. 

Thy  Book  the  Arcadian  life  rehearses 
In  sweet  and  soft  idyllic  verses, 
Silver  odes  and  songs  of  gold, 
Echoes  of  the  days  of  old. 
Nor  doth  it  lack  the  sober  page, 
Devotions  of  thy  vicarage, 
Where  thou  yieldest  many  a  gem 
To  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem. 

[106] 


s.  s 


;s-  s 

TO  ft 

-s  s- 

.A  c 


An  Hou?~  with  Herrick 


So  we  give  a  crown  to  thee, 
Prince  of  Rural  Minstrelsy; — 
Nations  fail  and  states  decay, 
Kings  and  senates  pass  away; 
'Tis  alone  the  golden  Rhyme 
Knoweth  not  the  tooth  of  Time. 
Herrick,  thine  Hesperides 
Liveth   through  the  centuries! 

I  once  saw  a  copy  of  the  first  edition  of  Herrick's 
poems,  with  their  title  Hesperides  which  he  must  have  hit 
upon  with  fine  gusto  of  delight, — that  title  which  he  gave 
to  the  children  of  his  fancy,  born  far  in  the  west  of  Eng 
land,  in  the  "dull  Devonshire"  which  he  affected  to  de 
spise.  "Hesperides:  or,  The  Works  both  Humane  and 
Divine  of  Robert  Herrick  Esq."  That  is  the  quaint  head 
ing  of  the  title-page.  And  where  but  "at  the  Crown  and 
Marygold  in  Saint  Pauls  Churchyard,"  should  the  elect 
few,  who  had  then  the  wit  to  discern  its  charm,  purchase 
this  golden  volume  in  the  stormy  year  of  1648-9,  when  it 
appeared ! 

In  the  old  yellow  pages  and  cumbrous  spelling  of  this 
ancient  volume,  as  I  pored  over  it  in  a  snug  low  corner  of 
Bodley's  library,  the  lovely  poems  of  the  master  had  for 
me  an  added  fragrance,  easily  transporting  me  into  those 
remote  days  when  the  ruddy  Vicar  of  Dean-Prior  rambled 
in  Devon  lanes  and  sang  of 

"The  country's  sweet  simplicity, 

The  purling  springs,  groves,  birds  and  well-weaved  bowers, 
With  fields  enameled  with  flowers;" 

of  the  "Shepherd's  fleecy  happiness"  and  his  soft  "silken 

[107] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


slumbers"  at  night,  and  of  every  joy  and  innocent  pastime 
of  the  countryside. 

Herrick's  home  was  an  old-time  cosy  parsonage,  and 
his  pets, — his  hen,  his  goose,  his  lamb,  his  cat  and  his  dog, 
which  he  enumerates  in  his  quaint  poem,  "His  Grange, 
or  Private  Wealth," — solaced  his  idler  hours,  we  may 
suppose;  for  Herrick's  were  simple,  old-fashioned  pleas 
ures.  He  was  a  true  brother  of  Izaak  Walton  in  the 
wholesome  cheeriness  and  serene  philosophy  with  which 
he  took  the  world. 

"Lord,   thou   hast  given   me   a  cell 

Wherein  to  dwell, 
A  little  house,  whose  humble  roof 

Is   weatherproof, 
Under  the  spars  of  which  I  lie 

Both  soft  and  dry ; 
Where  thou,  my  chamber  for  to  ward, 

Hast  set  a   guard 
Of  harmless  thoughts,  to  watch  and  keep 

Me  while  I  sleep. 
Low  is  my  porch  as  is  my  fate, 

Both  void  of  state ; 
And  yet  the  threshold   of  my  door 

Is  worn  by  th'  poor, 
Who  thither  come  and  freely  get 

Good  words   or  meat. 
Like  as  my  parlour  so  my  hall 

And   kitchen's  small; 
A  little  buttery,  and  therein 

A    little  bin, 
Which  keeps  my  little  loaf  of  bread 

Unchipped,  unfled; 
Some  brittle  sticks  of  thorn  or  briar 

Make  me  a  fire, 

[108] 


An  Hour  with  Herrick 


Close  by  whose  living  coal   I  sit 
And  glow  like  it." 

My  brother  wrote  of  this  poem,  while  visiting  Her- 
rick's  antique  village:  "I  can  never  forget  the  impress 
of  that  lovable  and  delightful  poem  of  gratitude,  in  the 
light  shed  upon  it  by  this  small,  quaint  and  simple  fire 
side,  and  cosy,  small  dining-room  of  the  dear  old  poetic 
vicar."  And  the  poem  continues, — 

"Lord,  I  confess  too,  when  I  dine, 

The   pulse   is   thine, 
And   all   those   other  bits  that  be 

There  placed  by  thee ; 
The  worts,  the  purslane,  and  the  mess 

Of  water-cress, 
Which  of  thy  kindness  thou  has  sent; 

And    my    content 
Makes  those,  and  my  beloved  beet 

To  be  more  sweet." 

Can  such  a  poem  of  thanksgiving  be  surpassed  for 
homely,  affectionate  piety,  and  avowal  of  contentment 
with  the  lot  God  has  given?  Content  is  Robert  Herrick's 
word  again  and  again. 

"Or  pea,  or  bean,  or  wort  or  beet, 
Whatever   comes,   content   makes   sweet." 

CONTENT,  NOT  GATES 
"  'Tis  not  the  food,  but  the  content 
That  makes  the  table's  merriment 
A   little  pipkin  with   a  bit 
Of  mutton,  or  of  veal  in  it, 
Set  on   my  table,  trouble-free, 
More   than   a  feast  contenteth  me." 

[109] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


Simple-hearted,  sweet-souled  Poet,  what  a  lesson  is 
thine  to  us  of  this  over-busy  twentieth  century! 

Herrick's  "Argument  of  His  Book"  is  a  delightful  and 
naive  bead-roll, — 

"I  sing  of  brooks,  of  blossoms,  birds,  and  bowers, 
Of  April,  May,  of  June,  and  July  flowers; 
I  sing  of  May-poles,  hock-carts,  wassails,  wakes, 
Of  bridegrooms,  brides,  and  of  their  bridal  cakes 
I  sing  of  dews,  of  rains,  and,  piece  by  piece, 
Of  balm,  of  oil,  of  spice,  and  ambergris; 
I  sing  of  times  trans-shifting;  and  I  write 
How  roses  first  came  red,  and  lilies  white; 
I  write  of  groves,  of  twilights,  and  I  sing 
The  court  of  Mab,  and  of  the  fairy  King. 
I  write  of  Hell;  I  sing,  and  ever  shall, 
Of  Heaven,  and  hope  to  have  it  after  all." 

Very  precise  indeed  is  this  charming  catalogue  of  the 
objects  which  his  muse  has  immortalized,  for  his  pages  are 
rilled  with  springtime  and  summer,  with  roses  and  lilies 
and  the  "dainty  daisy."  Cherry  blossoms  and  daffodils 
flutter  across  his  lines,  and  birds  and  brooks  carol  from 
every  corner.  Ruddy  swains  dance  round  the  May-pole 
in  company  with  maidens  that  are  "ruby-lipt  and  tooth'd 
with  pearl."  Here  Lallage  "with  cow-like  eyes"  sits  as 
judge  while  neat-herds  pipe  their  pastoral  ditties  in  friendly 
rivalry.  Herrick's  marriage-lays  to  young  brides  of  his 
acquaintance  are  jewelled  with  gracious  and  delicate  com 
pliment;  and  his  dainty  lyrics  on  the  fairies  of  the  forest 
are,  in  the  words  of  the  old  anthology  where  they  first 
appeared,  "very  delightful  to  the  sense,  and  full  of  mirth." 
In  the  immortal  pages  of  the  Hesperides,  apple-cheeked 
children  wander  through  corn-fields  "a-flutter  with 

[110] 


An  Hour  with  Herrick 


poppies,"  and  "girls  of  flower-sweet  breath"  dip  their 
"silvery  feet"  in  "the  spangling  dew  dredg'd  o'er  the 
grass,"  and  pluck  from  golden  orchards  the  "fragrant  ap 
ples,  blushing  plums,"  the  "Kathrine  pears,  and  apricots 
in  youthful  years." 

The  hearty  old  rector  addressed  to  young  brides  of  his 
acquaintance  marriage-lays  jewelled  with  gracious  and 
exquisite  compliment.  He  could  say  the  happiest  things 
to  the  lasses  of  Devonshire,  as  when  he  wrote  this, — 

"UPON  A  VIRGIN   KISSING  A   ROSE 

'Twas  but  a  single  Rose, 

Till  you  on  it  did  breathe; 
But   since    (me   thinks)    it  shows 

Not  so  much  Rose,  as  Wreathe." 

It  is,  of  course,  reminiscent  of  Jonson's  splendid  song, 
"Drink  to  me  only  with  thine  eyes."  Anything  the  young 
er  poet  might  achieve  by  way  of  echo  from  rare  Ben's 
verse  would  be  a  happiness  to  him,  for  was  not  the  veteran 
veritably  canonized  by  his  worshipful  disciple, — 

''When   I  a  Verse  shall  make, 
Know  I  have  pray'd  thee 
For  olde  Religion's  sake, 
Saint  Ben,  to  aid  me. 

"Candles  I'll  give  to  thee, 

And   a  new  Altar; 
And   thou  Saint  Ben   shalt  be 
Writ  in  my  Psalter!" 

For  me,  Herrick's  truest  self  speaks  out  in  those  small 
pieces  wherein  with  innocent  joy  he  sings  of  his  homely 
contentment  and  his  "own  beloved  privacie." 

[Ill] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


In  the  magic  verse  of  this  lovable  old  singer  the  hill 
sides  of  Devonshire  become  dewy-sweet  and  fragrant  with 
an  undying  charm.  Open  the  Hesperides  where  we  will, 
and  among  its  1401  little  poems  we  find  such  titles  as 
these  in  this  garden  of  delight, — "To  Primroses  Filled 
with  Morning  Dew,"  "How  Roses  Came  Red,"  "To  the 
Nightingale  and  Robin  Redbreast,"  "To  Blossoms,"  "How 
Marigolds  Came  Yellow,"  "Harvest  Home,"  "An  Apron 
of  Flowers," — and  so  on  through  hundreds  of  such  flow 
ery  and  idyllic  titles  that  wreathe  themselves  across  the 
rosy  pages  where  the  poet  doth  with  his 

"Eclogues  intermix 
Some   smooth   and   harmless   Bucolics." 

With  Herrick,  in  his  honest  love  for  his  own  lovely 
verse,  we  must  agree  that  his  volume  is 

"a  plant,  sprung  up  to  wither  never, 
But  like  a  laurel,  to  grow  green  forever." 

I  quote  again  from  my  brother's  impressions  of  Her- 
rick's  home  village  of  Dean  Prior:  "I  looked  in  upon  the 
ancient  kitchen  and  dining  room,  the  very  same  in  which 
good  old  Robert  Herrick  feasted  on  his  garden's  products 
and  sat  before  his  cosy  fire  and  thanked  God  over  and  over 
for  the  joy  of  rural  contentment  and  true  and  simple 
pleasures.  With  the  great  keys  in  hand  the  rector's  wife 
led  me  down  the  by-road  to  the  small,  pretty  church, 
whose  old,  solid,  stout  and  sturdy  battlemented  tower 
remains  as  in  Herrick's  own  day.  Where  Herrick  lies 
may  never  be  known,  for  his  reverend  dust  was  moved 
from  inside  the  church,  to  rest  beneath  the  sunshine  and 

[112] 


An  Hour  with  Herrick 


the  flowers  he  so  adored,  in  an  unmarked  grave.  The 
churchyard  has  a  many-centuried  yew,  up  which  climbs 
dark  ivy.  One  of  the  most  picturesque  Arcadian  villages 
that  ever  I  saw  is  Dean  Prior,  writh  thatched  roofs,  odd 
windows,  flowers  everywhere  in  endless  profusion.  Think 
of  it,  Herrick's  parishioners  lived  in  these  very  same  old 
ancestral  homes!" 

I  am  thinking  only  of  Herrick's  pastoral  quality,  this 
July  afternoon  among  our  flowery  meadows.  Emerson 
reports  of  Channing  the  younger,  that  "he  celebrates  Her 
rick  as  the  best  of  English  poets,  a  true  Greek  in  Eng 
land."  On  winter  nights  by  the  ingle  I  often  glow  over 
Herrick's  poems  of  comfort  and  honest  good  cheer  that 
have  in  them  so  much  that  is  Hellenic  and  Horatian. 

All  that  is  sweet  and  tender  and  lovable  in  the  strange 
old  country-life  of  England  of  three  hundred  years  ago 
receives  abundant  celebration  in  Herrick's  faultless  and 
exquisitely  limpid  verse ;  and  I  know  of  no  more  delightful 
book  to  be  owned  in  a  country  home, — to  which  members 
of  the  family  may  turn  when  daily  duties  press  heavily 
and  farm-labor  seems  all  unpoetic.  Let  our  youth  find, 
in  the  blossomy  pages  of  the  Hesperides,  how  lovely  a 
thing  the  out-door  world  may  be  when  seen  aright,  and 
what  idyllic  joy  in  that  country-life  which  Herrick  has 
portrayed, — "a  country-life,"  says  Austin  Dobson,  "which 
time  has  'softly  moulded  in  the  filmy  blue'  of  doubtful- 
est  remoteness,  and  over  which  his  poetry  has  cast  its 
inalienable — its  imperishable  charm." 

Herrick,    thine    Hesperides 
Liveth  through  the  centuries ! 

[113] 


SILVIA 


* — tf'ULY  XXII.  In  a  neighboring  shire  there  is  a  wide 
ffA-  valley  where  the  little  willow  dells  in  April  are 
softly  beautiful  like  those  of  Corot;  where  in  Sep 
tember  the  red  apples  lie  heaped  in  the  bowering  orchards, 
and  where  the  far  woodlands  take  on  in  late  autumn  a 
veil  of  dreamy  fawn  and  purple.  Beneath  great,  hos 
pitable  trees  in  this  valley  stands  an  old-fashioned  and 
most  comfortable  farmstead,  among  its  hollyhocks  and 
peonies,  its  marigolds  and  purple  phlox.  This  is  the  home 
of  our  friend  Silvia;  we  call  her  Silvia,  for  she  seems  like 
her  of  whom  Shakespeare  wrote,  in  those  words  that  have 
an  added  loveliness  when  sung  to  the  air  whereto  Schubert 
has  mated  them, — 

"Who  is  Silvia?  what  is  she, 
That  all  our  swains  commend  her?" 

This  day  Silvia  has  been  with  us,  and  under  our  tall 
oaks  she  has  been  telling  us  of  her  sojourn  in  Hellas, — 
for  she  is  one  of  those  who  still  hold  to  the  old  faith, 
placing  Thought  high  above  Fact,  and  believing  with  Shel 
ley  that 

"Greece  and  her  foundations  are 
Built  below  the  tides  of  war, 
Based  on  the  crystalline   sea 
Of  thought  and  its  eternity;" 

and  she  has  strengthened  her  faith  by  long  contemplation 
of  the  homes  of  Hellenic  art  and  poetry.     She  has  rambled 

[114] 


Silvia 

in  the  Vale  of  Tempe,  has  seen  the  moon  lighting  the 
broken  marbles  of  Phidias,  and  beheld  the  very  fields 
where  the  shepherds  of  Theocritus  long  ago  chanted  their 
amaboean  songs.  With  Bayard  Taylor  might  Silvia  say: 

"Golden  the  hills  of  Cos,  with  pencilled  cerulean  shadows; 
Phantoms  of   Carian   shores   that   are    painted    and   fade   in   the 

distance; 

Patmos  behind,  and  westward  the  flushed  Ariadnean  Naxos, — 
Once  as  I  saw  them  sleeping,  drugged  with  the  poppy  of  sum 
mer." 

She  spoke  of  Sunium,  bounded  in  springtime  with  the 
violet  sea  and  backed  with  green  corn-lands,  red  poppies, 
and  masses  of  tiny  blooms,  yellow  and  purple  and  white, 
in  the  open  and  beneath  soft  shadowing  trees.  A  morning 
climb  upon  the  slopes  of  Lycabettus,  she  said,  was  like  a 
page  from  a  Greek  idyll.  There  the  slopes  were  covered 
with  great  patches  of  asphodel,  pale  pink  against  the  blue 
sky  or  the  gray  of  Hymettus  beyond.  Innumerable  bees 
were  humming  among  the  flowers,  and  the  wind  was 
blowing  softly  through  the  pine  trees  over  the  lower 
slopes.  Here  and  there  poppies  shone  out,  and  everywhere 
were  pink  and  purple  and  yellow  flowers  covering  the 
brown  and  gray  of  the  stony  slopes.  From  the  top  one 
could  see  a  vast  stretch  of  blue  sea,  with  blue  islands  and 
blue  ranges  of  mountains  beyond  them  all.  In  the  west 
rose  up  Cyllene  (birthplace  of  great  Hermes, — the  "Cyl- 
lene  hoar"  of  Milton's  Arcades),  clear  white  with  snow 
against  the  sky  of  orange  and  pale  rose. 

Into  the  north  of  Hellas,  Silvia  and  her  friends  jour 
neyed  ;  and  on  the  slopes  of  classic  Pelion  they  saw  the  olive 
groves,  gray-green,  with  scarlet  anemones  glowing  in  the 

[115] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


sweet  grass,  delicate  poplars  outlined  against  the  sky, 
and  fruit  trees  gleaming  in  the  sun  against  the  old  houses. 

As  Silvia  went  on  with  her  narrative,  and  the  shadows 
grew  long  across  the  fields,  we  seemed  rapt ;  ancient  Hellas 
lived  again,  and  Homer's  land  was  no  longer  a  vanished 
dream ! 

In  Thessaly,  said  Silvia,  we  could  imagine  ourselves 
in  the  land  of  Achilles,  the  fertile  land  of  Phthia,  Homer 
calls  it,  near  Othrys,  which  we  saw  white  in  the  distance 
as  we  passed  Pherae,  the  home  of  the  hospitable  Admetus, 
whose  flocks  Apollo  tended  for  a  year.  Did  we  dream 
that  we  beheld  the  divine  herdsman  himself?  Here  was 
the  region  where 

"Day  by  day  more   holy  grew 

Each  spot  where  he  had  trod, 
Till  after-poets  only  knew 

Their  first-born  brother  as  a  god." 

The  day  at  the  Vale  of  Tempe  was  a  superb  one,  in 
the  soft  May  weather.  In  this  romantic  pass,  great  plane 
trees  lean  over  the  water,  in  many  grotesque  and  rugged 
shapes,  veiled  in  the  most  delicate  golden-green  and  brown 
leafage,  and  the  earth  is  starred  with  anemone  and  yellow 
blossoms.  It  all  is  so  exquisitely  beautiful  that  one  ex 
claims  with  fresh  delight  at  every  turn  of  the  road.  At 
noon  we  rested  under  great  plane  trees  for  two  hours,  be 
side  a  spring, — nymph-haunted,  of  course, — where,  we 
could  imagine, 

"By   dimpled  brook    and   fountain-brim, 
The  wood-nymphs,  decked  with  daisies  trim, 
Their  merry  wakes  and  pastimes  keep." 

[116] 


Silvia 

The  homeward  ride  through  the  sunset,  with  the 
storks  all  sailing  home,  with  Larissa  and  its  minarets,  and 
up  against  the  sky  Ossa  and  Olympus  just  touched  with 
enchanted  color  on  the  horizon, — Olympus,  fit  home  of 
the  gods,  remote  and  holy  and  awe-inspiring, — all  this 
ended  an  experience  of  old  Homeric  Hellas  that  will  re 
main  unforgetable. 

And  in  Arcadia, — Arcadia,  remotest  of  lands,  so  vague 
and  dream-like  that  the  Hellenic  imagination  fancied  it 
the  home  of  an  idyllic  shepherd  folk,  whose  lives  were 
felicitous  beyond  compare, — in  that  region  of  orchards 
and  flocks,  of  wild  honey  and  crocus  and  hyacinth  and 
deep-starred  grass,  Silvia  beheld  a  shepherd  piping  with 
all  his  flock  around  him,  and  a  stately  oak  glade  below, 
— and  all  in  Arcadia! 

That  last  touch  of  Silvia's  narrative,  how  it  takes  pos 
session  of  the  fancy! — the  crown  of  her  Hellenic  expe 
riences, — transporting  one  from  this  noisy  century  of  ours 
to  the  pure  simplicity  of  the  most  poetic  age  of  the  world. 

Said  Silvia:  "In  a  vale  of  Arcady 

I  saw  a  shepherd  lying  in  the  shade — 

Some  Corydon  or  Lycidas,  methought — 

Soft  piping  'mid  those  flowery  solitudes 

Beside  his  grazing  flock.     No  fairer  sight 

Have  I  beheld  in  pastoral  Sicily, 

By  storied  Tempe,  or  Larissa's  plains 

Where  storks  sail  homeward  through  the  setting  sun, 

Nor  by  white-templed  Sunium  on  the  sea, — 

Than  this  enchanted  scene  among  the  fields 

Of  Arcady  remote." 

[117] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


And  at  her  words, — 
Unto  my  heart,  a-fevered  with  the  fret 
Of  these  our  hurried  days,  a  vision  came 
Of  old-world  Hellas  bathed  in  dreamy  light 
And  sweet  with  music  of  the  rustic  flute, 
Laughter  and  lyric  joy;  of  green-lipt  springs 
Where  oreads  and  wood-gods  joined  with  Pan 
In  rural  revelry;  far  mountain  slopes 
Down  which  the  troops  of  pure-browed  Artemis 
Ranged  in  the  jocund  chase;  and  beechen  groves 
Beneath  whose  murmurous   foliage   dryads   gleamed 
Soft-white  as  mists  above  the   twilight  meads. 
— Thus  for  an  hour  the  clear  and  golden  light 
Of  old-world  Hellas  shone  again  when  Silvia, 
Poetic  Silvia,  spoke  of  Corydon 
A-fluting  in  a  vale  of  Arcady ! 


[118] 


THE  SAME  OLD  WAYS 


"I  do  not  want  change:  I  want  the  same  old  and  loved 
things,  the  same  wild  flowers,  the  same  trees  and  soft 
ash-green;  the  turtle-doves,  the  blackbirds,  the  coloured 
yellowhammer  sing,  sing,  singing  so  long  as  there  is  light 
to  cast  a  shadow  on  the  dial,  for  such  is  the  measure  of 
his  song, — and  I  want  them  in  the  same  place  " 

ULY  XXV.  Let  the  restless  and  nervous  seeker 
after  pleasure  pursue  his  elusive  goal  along  dusty 
leagues  from  city  to  city,  from  mountain  to  sea 
side, — peace  and  contentment  are  rarely  his.  Let  me  find 
contentment  and  peace  beside  the  idyllic  Brandywine, 
where  the  same  green  and  yellow  adorn  the  farm  fields 
year  after  year,  where  the  honeysuckle  and  lilacs  breathe 
the  same  old  fragrance,  and  the  ring-dove  pours  forth  his 
ancient  sorrow,  where  ambition  is  mild,  and  fashions 
change  but  seldom,  and  the  same  kindly  faces  go  by  on  the 
old  yellow  highway  from  farm  to  village,  from  village  to 
farm. 

"I  still  can   hear  at  times   a  softer  note 
Of  the  old  pastoral  music  round  me  float." 

The  folk  of  the  Brandywine  dales  run  not  after  new 
things;  they  hear,  perhaps,  of  another  vessel  added  to  the 
navy  or  of  a  new  species  of  mind-cure,  but  such  things  dis 
turb  not  these  good,  old-fashioned  people.  Hay-wagons 
are  more  to  them  than  war-ships,  and  they  are  too  hearty 
and  robust  to  need  any  mind-cures ;  their  wholesome  en 
thusiasm  is  centered  in  their  cattle  and  barns,  their  holly- 

[119] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


hocks  and  roses.  April  finds  them  plowing  the  brown  soil, 
July  sees  them  gathering  in  the  overflowing  harvests,  al 
most  as  in  the  days  of  their  forefathers ;  and  if  the  ancient 
tune  of  the  whetstone  on  the  cradle-blade  has  become  well- 
nigh  a  lost  melody,  yet  the  steady,  rhythmic  hum  of  the 
reaper-and-binder  fills  the  dreamy  air  agreeably.  Men 
grow  old  and  die  on  the  same  farms,  sons  inherit  acres 
that  have  "been  in  the  family"  for  a  century  or  more, 
and  daughters  and  granddaughters  raise  the  same  old  be 
loved  phlox  and  four-o'clocks  and  marigolds.  Just  across 
the  hills  are  living  the  descendants  of  an  Oxfordshire 
worthy  who  came  oversea  in  Queen  Anne's  day  and  took 
up  an  ample  tract  near  the  Brandywine;  and  the  Irish 
Quaker  squire  who  settled  this  green  township  two  cen 
turies  ago  is  lineally  represented  to-day  by  a  group  of 
lively  little  folks  who  live  all  summer  long  beside  his  an 
cient  little  river. 

"Here  old  uses  still  obtain, 

Sickle   and  scythe  the  reapers  ply, 
Still  tasselled  team  and  tilted  wain 
Rejoice  the  eye ; 

"As  though  Time,  yielding  to  its  charm, 
Over   this   quaint   sequestered    land 

Of  slumbrous  field  and   dreamy  farm 
Had  stayed  his  hand." 

So  the  old  days  and  the  old  ways  have  their  natural 
home  in  these  tranquil  valleys;  quietude  and  conserva 
tism  are  seated  here  by  ancient  right ;  grazing  cattle  and 
blossoming  orchards  and  antique  gardens  of  golden  and 
purple  bloom,  present  the  same  peaceful  aspect  as  men 

[120] 


The  Same  Old 


looked  upon  in  this  region   in  old  pre-Revolution  years, 
this  antique  Brandywine  region  of 

''Quiet  meadows,  with  their  browsing  kine, 
The  watery  vale  and  swarded  hills,  o'erswept 
From  morn  till  eve  by  shadows  of  white  clouds, 
Whisper  of   lime   and   poplar,   or  the  lisp 
Of   rivulet,    beneath    the   willow   boughs 
Telling  her  pebbles;    melodies  of  ]oy, 
Calm   as   far   bells  of  blessedness." 

Shall  I  not  find  a  deeper  charm,  for  all  this  ancient 
background,  as  I  re-read  old  favorite  books,  the  Arcadia, 
Izaak  Walton,  Herrick  and  Wordsworth? 

"Antiquity,  thou  wondrous  charm!" 


[121] 


THE  BROOK 


JULY  XXX 

"Oftentimes  I  used  to  look 
Upon  its  banks,  and  long 
To  steal  the  beauty  of  the  brook 
And  put  it  in  a  song." 

ELOW  the  ancient  grassy  hill  it  flows 
Among  the  pastures  by  the  shadowy  wood, 
And  melts  at  last  into  the  Brandywine. 
Small  willows  bend  above  it,  fragrant  weeds 
Draw  from  it  sweetness  for  their  golden  blooms 
And  purple  blossoms,  cattle  stoop  to  drink 
And  dream  and  ruminate  beside  its  sands 
And  mossy  stones;  and  from  the  shadowy  wood 
Come  shy  wood-creatures, — birds  and  merry  squirrels 
And  swift  ground-hackies, — sip  and  disappear; 
So  manifold  the  life  its  waters  feed. 

'Tis  here  I  love  to  wralk  at  twilight  hour 

Beneath  the  old  forsaken  orchard  trees, 

And  near  the  ancient,  quaint  "Star-gazers'  Stone," 

When  o'er  the  shoulder  of  the  grassy  hill 

The  sickle  moon  swings  low; — the  cows  have  gone, 

Shut  in  the  upland  pasture  for  the  night; 

The  gold  and  purple  blossoms  of  the  weeds 

Hang  drowsily;  the  birds  and  merry  squirrels 

Sleep  safely  in  their  woodland  bowers;  and  all 

The  little  valley  slumbers,  save  the  brook. 

[122] 


The  Brook 

More  sweet  its  melody  by  night  than  day, 
So  silent  is  all  else;  with  silvery  purl 
And  soft  adagios  it  bubbles  down 
O'er  elfin  slopes  and  faery  waterfalls; 
It  murmurs  soft  in  mossy  cool  retreats, 
Caresses  many  a  bed  of  cress,  and  flows 
Between  white  stones  in  tiny  sluices  swift. 

The  twilight  deepens  into  dusk;  on  high 
The  argent  crescent  swims  above  the  hill 
Like  some  white  faery  island  set  adrift; 
Soft  night-winds  sweep  the  ancient  grassy  hill 
And  stir  keen  weedy  fragrance,  while  the  brook 
Sings  on  with  ceaseless  music. 

Then,  I  think, 

Nature  most  truly  speaks;  'tis  then  she  yields 
Unto  her  devotees  her  utmost  spell. 
The  endless  twilight  of  the  mid-day  woods 
Or  evening  in  the  dim  and  moonlit  fields 
Are  magic  hours!    And  thee,  dear  Stream,  I  thank 
For  many  golden  reveries  and   dreams 
Beside  thy  weedy  margin  while  the  moon 
Above  the  old  forsaken  orchard  trees 
Shone  softly  on  thy  faery  waterfalls. 


[123] 


NEW  POETS 


"I  saw  the  singers  of  tny  day, 
A  happy  band,  a  folk  of  holiday" 

*  tf'ULY  XXXI.  It  is  a  significant  thing  to  read 
WA-  through  a  new  volume  of  verse,  and  find  it  portray 
ing  a  fine  personality  and  a  fresh  range  of  moods 
and  sentiments.  Turning  the  pages  of  such  a  book,  this 
summer  evening,  on  a  hill  above  the  Brandyvvine,  I  found 
food  for  pondering  and  pleasant  speculation.  A  chance 
meeting  with  the  author,  Harry  Koopman,  a  happy  hour 
on  the  serene  campus  of  the  old  college  where  he  is  libra 
rian,  and  then  the  dreaming  hours  over  his  verses, — these 
have  brought  me  acquainted  with  a  personality  of  original 
ity  and  persuasive  charm. 

Mr.  Koopman  responds  quickly  and  sensitively  to  all 
beauty,  whether  in  book,  in  music,  in  landscape,  or  in 
human  faces.  He  can  speak  sententiously,  as  where  he 
portrays  the  Violin  as — 

"Ariel  yearning  at  Miranda's  side 
For  the  humanity  to  him  denied." 

or  in  defining  poetry, — 

"To  make  men  think  what  they  but  felt  before, — 
The  poet's  art  is  this,  yet  how  much  more !" 

His  tenderness  of  heart  and  fine  power  of  affection 
are  in  evidence  in  various  elegies,  literary  tributes,  and 
avowals  of  love.  His  little  poem,  "Lowell's  Letters," 
illustrates  his  delicacy  of  wistful  sympathy: 

[124] 


New  Poets 

"Heart  of  love !     I  close  thy  book, — 
Whereon  thyself   didst  never  look, — 
And  say:  The  world,  which  deemed  it  knew 
Lowell  witty,   wise,   and  true, 
Guessed  but  half;   who  readeth  here 
As   a   lover   holds   him  dear." 

For  brooding  imagination  that  transfigures  all  things 
seen,  for  classical  scholarship  and  artistic  touch,  in  musing 
reverie,  this  poet  is  strong;  love  of  the  old  and  sympathy 
with  whatever  is  best  in  the  modern  world,  fit  him  for 
vivid  utterance ;  and  he  writes  with  vigor  and  melody. 
His  long  monody  on  "The  Gothic  Minster"  represents 
his  powers  at  their  ripest.  He  tells  of  the  deep  delight 
awaiting  the  pilgrim  from  the  new  world  who  first  looks 
upon  a  cathedral  in  Europe: 

"For  him  who  from   our  naked  shore  brings  eyes 
Of  unblest  innocence,  which  never  saw 
Beauty  in    stone  nor  vaulted   awfulness, 
Yet  brings  a  heart  that  thrills  to   grace  and   gloom — 
What  ravishment   awaits !      On   him  unwarned, 
In   all   their   beauty   and   their  fragrance,   burst 
These   fadeless  blossoms  of   the  centuries. 
Upon  his  ears  not  dulled  by  frequency 
The  mighty  chords  of  these  vast  instruments 
Shatter  full  diapason." 

With  a  sympathy  that  easily  spans  the  centuries,  our 
poet  muses  upon  the  artisans  who  wrought  the  cathedral's 
grace  and  solemn  beauty.  'Tis  a  fine  piece  of  imagination, 
touched  with  the  charm  of  children  and  flowers; — such 
living  scenes  rise  to  his  vision  as  he  contemplates  the 
ancient  shrine, — 

[125] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


"Then   the   mind's  eye 
Pictures  the  workman  of  that  elder  time 
On  Sunday  with  his  children  wandering 
In  wood  and  field,  and  noting  curve  and  poise 
Of  flower  and  leaf  and  stem,  while  constantly 
His   children   bring   him   brighter,    sweeter    blooms 
For  his  approval.     Wearying  at  last, 
They   lighten  with  their  songs   the   homeward   way. 
No  man  might  hope  to  see  the   pile  complete, 
But  yet  his  daily,  weekly,  yearly  task 
He  wrought   and   finished,   and   in   doing  it 

Found  happiness he  knew 

The  artist's  joy,   finding  in  art  his  life." 

In  a  certain  class-room,  and  in  chapel,  at  Yale,  two 
youthful  poets  were  wont  to  sit  side  by  side.  Now  that 
one  of  them  has  forever  closed  his  eyes  upon  the  world  of 
beauty  which  he  loved,  and  which  he  sang  in  memorable 
strains,  his  friend, — our  author, — has  written  this  affec 
tionate  poem  in  memory  of  those  days  at  Yale: — 

"EDWARD   ROWLAND   SILL 

"Of  me  shall  this  be  told 
Long  hence   and   far   away  to  envying  ears, 

When  o'er  my  age  the  years 
Their  billows  of  oblivion  have  rolled: 

"That  all  my  college  days 
I  sat  in  class  and  chapel  side  by  side 

With  Sill,  even  then  our  pride, 
As  now  the  land's — when   he   is   past  men's   praise. 

"Oft  when   the  preacher   read 
Some  lesson  drawn  from  wandering  Israel's  woes, 

Would  Sill  his  brown  eyes  close, 
And   on    my   shoulder   lay   his   beautiful   head. 

[126] 


New  Poets 

"Still,   as   the   voice   droned  on 
The  dreamer's  fancy  flitted  unopposed ; 

And  when   the   sermon   closed, 
Those  starry  eyes  brighter  from  Dreamland  shone." 

#     *     * 

The  emotions  that  are  stirred  by  the  sights  and  sounds 
and  thoughts  and  melodies  around  one  in  Italy  have  not 
always  summoned  forth  images  of  the  home-land  beyond 
the  western  seas;  but  in  the  case  of  Grace  Ellery  Chan- 
ning,  brooding  in  a  Medicean  garden,  "with  the  sight  of 
sunset  and  sea,  the  taste  of  mountain  air  and  woodland 
freshness,  the  faces  and  forms  of  Florentine  saints  and 
antique  gods,  the  serene  poignancy  of  great  phrases  of 
music," — there  has  flowed  from  her  pen  a  moving  poem 
on  our  American  meadow-lark,  suggested  to  her  upon 
hearing  a  nightingale's  song: 

"Garden   and   grove  grow   dim;   they  change   and   fade 
Like  their  pale  lords,  the  vanished  Medici; 
They  are   the  phantomed  shadows   of  a  shade, 
It  is  not  night,  nor  earth,  nor  Italy; 
And   that  which  sings   within   the   silences, — 
I   know  him  well, — no  singer   of  the  dark, 
No   alien  bird,   no  foreign    minstrel   he, 
But  mine  own  unsung  western-carolling  lark, 
Triumphant  singer   of  the  farthest  day, 
Carolling  earth,   heaven,   and   Italy   away. 

"I've  heard  him   in  the  New  World   wilderness 
Singing,  sad  nightingale,  not  notes  like  thine, 
But   plenteously  poured   forth   like   joyous   wine 
From   an   overflowing  chalice.     Loneliness 
And  sorrow  were  not  then ;   the  sunny  plain 
Filled  and  ran  o'er  with  the  melodious  rain 
Of  music,  and  the  golden-spiced  air 

[127] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


Trembled  with  happiness  fine-felt  and  rare; 
While  over,  over,  over,  high   above 
Went  lilting   still   the   med-lark,   love    and   love, 
And  joy  and  passionate  joy  and  ecstasy. 

O  singer  and  O  song,   return  to  me! 

O    nightingale ! — 

Thou   art  but  love   in   sorrow, — I   have   heard 
Love's  self  sing  westward  from  a   golden-throated  bird!" 

After   this   poem,   our   sweetly-poignant   meadow-lark 
may  no  longer  be  called  "unsung." 


A  poet  for  the  summer  mood  is  William  Stanley 
Braithwaite,  he  of  the  distinguished  name  and  rich  imagin 
ation.  Of  the  line  of  such  poets  as  Spenser  and  Keats 
and  Rossetti,  of  warm  sympathies  and  picturesque  diction, 
Mr.  Braithwaite  writes  for  those  who  care  for  the  old 
poetic  traditions.  Memory's  voice  can  always  wake  him  to 
some  tender  sentiment;  thus  he  muses  over  a  pressed 
flower  in  a  copy  of  Keats'  Endymion: 

"As  Keats'  old  honeyed  volume  of  romance 
I    oped   to-day  to  drink   its  Latmos   air, 
I  found   all   pressed   a  white  flower  lying  where 
The  shepherd  lad   watched   Pan's  herd  slow   advance. 
Ah,  then  what  tender  memories  did  chance 
To  bring  again  the  day,  when   from  your  hair, 
This  frail  carnation,  delicate  and  fair, 

You   gave   me 

What  waves  of  passion   seem 
About  this  flower  to  linger  and  to  break, 
Lit  by  the  glamor  of  the  moon's  pale  beam, 
The  while  my  heart  weeps  for  this  dear   flower's  sake." 

It  is  cheering  to  observe  a  poet  who  holds  to  one  fine 

[128] 


New  Poets 

tradition,  who  in  a  day  of  new  fashions  and  strange  ex 
periments  in  verse  still  cherishes  the  ideals  of  his  youth 
and  sings  in  the  old  melodious  way.  An  avowed  disciple 
of  the  romantic  school  is  William  Stanley  Braithwaite, 
whose  earlier  volume  proved  him  of  the  "little  clan"  who 
inherit  something  of  the  spell  of  Keats;  a  poet  whose 
lyrics  have  won  the  regard  of  the  late  Mr.  Stedman,  and 
of  Miss  Guiney  and  other  right  judges  of  poetry. 

In  the  opening  sonnets  of  his  new  volume,  he  writes 
of  the  "House  of  Falling  Leaves"  as  a  place  of  dream  and 
of  enchantment,  in  lines  marked  by  subtle  music  and  grave 
pathos,  as  in  the  closing  stave, — 

"When  Time  shall  close  the  door  unto  the  house 
And  open  that  of  Winter's  soon  to  be, 
And   dreams    go   moving   through   the    ruined    boughs — 
He  who  went  in  comes  out  a  Memory. 
From  his   deep   sleep  no  sound  may  e'er  arouse, — 
The  moaning  rain,  nor  wind-embattled  sea." 

As  a  lyric  artist  this  singer  is  notable  for  the  abund 
ance  of  his  forms;  he  writes  sonnets  in  thoughtful  mood, 
giving  them  true  dignity  and  a  certain  literary  flavor,  and 
choosing  this  or  a  pensive  meditative  stanza  for  tributes 
to  his  poetic  masters — Blake,  Keats,  Rossetti,  and  Aid- 
rich.  With  the  late  Arthur  Upson,  whose  own  fine  muse 
has  given  us  some  unforgetable  songs  and  reveries,  Mr. 
Braithwaite  recalls  happy  hours  of  friendship  beside  the 
river  Charles,  where  they  pondered 

"The  book  our  souls  have  writ  in  rhyme: 
Youth's  golden  chapters  done  in  poetry." 

Beautiful  creations  of  color  and  melody  are  frequent 

[129] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


in  these  pages;  how  the  spirit  responds  to  this  Aprilian 
call- 

"Straight  in  the  heart  of  the  April  meadows, 

Straight  in  the  dream  in  the  heart  of  you — 
Spring — in  the  glory  of  gleams  and  shadows, 
Flame  and  gossamer,  green  and  blue!" 

In  this  New  England  poet  we  yet  have  one  whose 
music  has,  as  it  were,  a  Southern  affluence,  a  vein  of  pas 
sion  and  haunting  wistfulness.  His  is  the  "sapphic  strain," 
as  Harrison  Morris  calls  it, — the  powrer  of  breathing  into 
his  songs  the  ineffable  note  of  tearful  regret  and  wild, 
strange  beauty.  There  is  here  more  than  one  lyric  that 
calls  for  music,  none  more  surely  than  the  sea-dream, 
"Ave  and  Vale" : 

"O,   far   away    across   the   beach 

The  mist  is  in  the  sunset, 
And    dreams    lie    low 

In  the  silence  of  the  foam; 
Beyond  the  dim  horizon 

Where  the  creeping  darkness  pauses 
I  hear  the  grey  winds  calling 
And  they  lead  desire  home. 
O  Ave  to  the  evening  star, 

And  Vale  to  the  setting  sun; 
And  a  deep,  deep  sea  across  the  bar 
Where  the  grey  winds  call  and  run." 
*     *     * 

A  true  poet  of  nature  is  Benjamin  Franklin  Leggett, 
of  Delaware  County.  He  sings  of  the  out-door  world 
in  its  rich  summer  and  autumnal  moods.  Melodious  and 
of  easy  flow,  his  verses  picture  the  simple  charm  of  our 
own  countryside.  He  has  written  of  the  Brandywine, 

[130] 


New  Poets 

"Stream  of  beauty, — Susqueco,"  using  one  of  the  ancient 
Indian  names  for  the  little  river: 

"Through  the  shadows   cool  and   dim, 
Willow-woven   by   the    rim, 
Threading  meadow  lands  of  bloom 
Where  the  flowers  give  it  room, 
Through  a  sweet  idyllic  dream 
Runs  the  naiad-haunted  stream, — 
Ever  crowning  sweetest   song 
Where  the   reeds   and   rushes  throng: — 
Through  the  valley's  green  and  gold 
Where  the  tides  of  battle  rolled 
In  the  stormy  days  of  old, 
Softly  glide   in   rhythmic  flow 
The  pictured  waves  of  Susqueco. 

"Susqueco,   O   Susqueco! 
How  thy   singing  waters   flow — 
From    the   fountains   in    the   hills, 
From  the   laughing,   limpid  rills 
Fed  by  crystal  dew  and  rain, 
Gleaming    through    the    fields    of    grain, 
Dreaming  by  the  slopes  of  fern, 
Where    the    lady-slippers   burn, 
Where   the    ponderous     mill-wheels   turn, — 
Past  the  miller's  dusty  doors, 
By   the    lily-whitened    shores, 
While  the  sunshine  softly  lies 
On  the  mirror  of  the  skies! 

"Susqueco,   O    Susqueco ! 
Whither  do  thy  waters  flow  ? 
Under    arches   builded    wide — 
Rounded  circles  in   the  tide, 
Under  bridges  mossy,   brown, 
Through    the    meadows    flowing    down, 
Through   the  woodland   and  the   lea, 

[131] 


Brandy  wine  Day. 


Singing  ever  towards  the   sea, 
Where   thy   song  is  hushed   at  last 
When  the  idle  dream  is   passed 
In  the  infinite  and  vast, 
Thither  do  thy  waters  flow, 
Stream    of   beauty — Susqueco!" 


[132] 


EVEN-SONG 


"The  thrushes  sing  in  every  tree; 

The  shadows  long  and  longer  grow ; 
Broad  sunbeams  lie  athwart  the  lea; 

The  oxen  low; 
Round  roof  and  tower  the  swallows  slide; 

And  slowly,  slowly  sinks  the  sun, 
At  curfew-tide, 

When  day  is  done." 

gUGUST  III.  Twilight:  the  little  ones  have 
ceased  their  play  beneath  the  trees,  where  they 
were  scattering  rose  petals  and  unconsciously 
suggesting  those  pictures  of  sweet  old-world  children  in 
the  pages  of  Kate  Greenaway.  The  petunias  glimmer 
white  and  ghost-like  above  the  filmy  green  of  the  grass; 
the  soft  "tinkle-tinkle"  of  cow-bells  never  ceases  as  the 
herd  feeds  slowly  across  the  field ;  the  swallows  fly  in  low 
circles  over  the  stream;  and  distant  fragmentary  talk  and 
sounds  of  trotting  hoofs  tell  of  the  people  out  for  their 
Sunday  evening  drive. 

The  frogs  chant  with  dulcet  and  flute-like  voices 
among  the  bulrushes  and  lily-pads;  dusky  night-moths  flit 
hither  and  thither  like  strange  spiritual  things;  early 
owls  call  from  the  thick  spruces;  the  young  moon  is  shep 
herding  her  starry  flocks;  and  the  dark  comes  slowly  on. 
The  children,  happy  and  tired,  are  seeking  sleep,  and  one 
rosy  little  darling  goes  to  dreamland  with  her  mother's 
soft  crooning  of  an  evensong, — 

[133] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


FOLDED  ARE  THE  ROSES 
I 

Folded  are  the  roses  and  the  lilies  are  asleep ; 

Slumber,  baby  dear! 
In  the  peaceful  heavens  now  the  stars  begin  to  peep ; 

Slumber,   baby  dear! 

Far  down  the  meadow  the  frogs  are  chanting  low, 
Fire-flies  are  setting  all  their  little  lamps  aglow. 

Slumber  softly,  dearie, 

After    play-time    weary. 

Mother  sees  the  sickle  moon  along  the  sleepy  west; 
Slumber  softly,  baby,  slumber  softly  in  thy  nest, 
Thy  downy  nest! 

II 

Cattle  from  the  clover-fields  have  all  been  driven  home  ; 

Baby,  close  thy  eyes! 

From    their   mothers   little   lambs   no   longer   wish    to 
roam ; 

Baby,  close  thy  eyes ! 

Crickets  in  the  hay-field  and  locusts  in  the  tree 
Long  ago  have  folded  wings  and  ceased  their  melody. 

When  the  stars  are  gleaming 

Babies  should  be  dreaming. 

Mother  sees  the  sickle  moon  along  the  sleepy  west; 
Slumber  softly,  baby,  slumber  softly  in  thy  nest, 
Thy  downy  nest! 

[134] 


Even- Song 


III 

Yellow  lights  are  twinkling  in  the  far-off  city  towers; 

Sleep,  my  little  child! 
Village  bells  are  telling  to  the  wind  the  drowsy  hours; 

Sleep,  my  little  child ! 

Father's  put  away  the  scythe,  the  harvesting  is  done; 
Robins  in  the  apple-boughs  are  silent  every  one. 

Mother  o'er  thy  sleeping 

Gentlest  watch  is  keeping. 

Mother  sees  the  sickle  moon  along  the  sleepy  west; 
Slumber  softly,  baby,  slumber  softly  in  thy  nest, 
Thy  downy  nest! 


[135] 


A  CUYP  LANDSCAPE 


"All  the  long  August  afternoon, 
The  drowsy  stream 
Whispers  a  melancholy  tune, 
As  if  it  dreamed  of  June, 
And  whispered  in  its  dream. 

"The  silent  orchard  aisles  are  sweet 
With  smell  of  ripening  fruit. 
Through  the  sere  grass,  in  shy  retreat, 
Flutter,  at  coming  feet, 
The  robins  strange  and  mute." 

UGUST  IV.  The  old  purple  beech  is  softly  vol 
uble  this  afternoon.  I  seem  to  hear  wafture  of 
spirit-whisperings  from  its  thick-laid  foliage  stirred 
to  lightest  melody  by  the  summer  zephyrs,  and  to  feel  my 
self  in  a  way  like  a  far-off  brother  of  the  Greeks  of  old, 
those  sensitive  folk  to  whom  plashing  fountain  and  bend 
ing  bough  spoke  familiarly  and  tenderly  the  supernal  se 
crets  of  their  fair  nature-world. 

I  see  the  little  water-willows  bending  above  the  Bran- 
dywine's  green  mirror ;  across  a  distant  field  a  farm-wagon 
moves  slowly,  gathering  the  last  of  the  belated  oats-harv 
est;  now  and  again  the  wood-pigeon  calls  plaintively  from 
the  tall  grove  of  oaks,  "thick-leaved,  ambrosial ;"  the  wild 
carrots  hang  their  graceful  heads,  heavy  with  the  morn 
ing's  shower ;  down  across  the  meadow  the  vast  cloud-shad 
ows  move  slowly  and  majestically;  while  the  cattle  feed 

[136] 


A  Cuyp  Landscape 


in  unbroken  peace  or  lie  gently  chewing  the  cud  near  the 
rose-mallows  and  the  spicy  peppermint.  It  is  indeed  a 
bland  and  harmonious  day — how  can  I  forget  its  loveliness, 
its  magical  thrill  and  spirit-music,  or  the  enchanting 
nuances  of  gold  and  emerald  where  the  sun  plays  upon 
the  grass,  now  in  full  glow  and  now  through  the  screen 
of  drifting  cloud-rack! 

"Good-bye,  sweet  day!"  cried  Celia  Thaxter  to  ex 
quisite  hours  like  these, — in  those  pathetic  verses  which  I 
have  heard  sung  so  often  by  one  wrho  puts  her  heart  into 
the  tender  words: 

"Thou  \vert  so  fair  from  thy  first  morning  ray; 

I  have  so  loved  thee,  but  cannot,  cannot  hold  thee; 

Dying  like  a  dream,  the  shadows  fold  thee. 
Slowly  thy  perfect  beauty  fades  away, — 
Good-bye,   sweet  day!      Good-bye,   sweet   day!" 

Would  this  beauty  touch  one  so  deeply,  think  you,  if 
the  scene  were  wholly  a  wild  one?  I  cannot  believe  it. 
That  team  in  the  oats  field,  these  quiet,  meditative  cattle, 
add  the  unnamed  charm,  the  Virgilian  quality  that  de 
lights  by  reason  of  its  blending  of  pristine  nature  with 
sure  signs  of  man's  immemorial  association  with  the  ven 
erable  farmlands  and  pasture-fields  of  the  world.  The 
great  Turner  felt  this  when  he  placed  in  his  landscapes, — 
glorious  writh  cloud  and  river  and  endless  champaign — 
some  random  boat  or  barn,  castle  or  arching  bridge,  ever 
some  object  that  should  remind  us  that  man  is  in  the 
midst  of  his  inherited  wealth  of  the  antique  earth.  And 
Corot  painted  never  an  exquisite  pastorale  but  he  set  amid 
his  vaporous  trees  or  beside  his  cool  and  tranquil  ponds  a 
band  of  wandering  children,  a  peasant  or  two,  or  a  wreath 

[137] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


of  sylvan  divinities, — adding  a  last  magical  pathos  that 
makes  him  akin  to  Wordsworth  in  his  particular  appeal 
to  the  sentiment  and  love  of  the  nature-worshipper. 

There  is  another  painter  whose  pastoral  scenes  repre 
sent  that  quality  of  long-settled  rural  peace  and  ancient 
security  which  abounds  in  our  Brandywine  valleys — Al 
bert  Cuyp ;  though  his  be  Dutch  landscapes,  we  may  easily 
read  into  them  our  own  home  meadows.  Cuyp  reveals 
in  its  perfection  the  beauty  of  wide  pasture-lands  bathed 
all  day  long,  and  day  after  drowsy  day,  in  "the  moated 
glow  of  the  amber  sunlight,"  where  the  grazing  cattle  and 
the  idle  herd-boys  seem  to  blend  with  the  soft  golden  land 
scape  in  one  complete  harmony.  It  wTas  of  this  painter's 
cattle-scene,  where  the  shepherd  is  playing  his  pipe,  that 
Lloyd  Mifflin  has  written  lines  that  might  almost  have 
come  from  the  pen  of  Keats, — 

"The  very  children  gaze,  and  stop  their  play, 
Bound  to  the  place  by  music's  magic  bands. 
O  piper  of  the  picture,  keep  thy  hands 
Forever  on  the  flute,  as  here  to-day; 
The  world  is  full  of  noise, — pipe  on,  we  pray! 
Thy  note  the  spirit  hears,  and  understands." 

My  favorite  among  the  landscapes  by  Cuyp  is  his 
"Sunny  Day."  Utter  serenity  and  golden  stillness  fill 
the  lovely  countryside,  the  distant  stream  and  the  misty  ho 
rizon.  If  there  be  sunlight  of  more  absolute  clarity  and 
perfection  of  balmy  brightness  than  here  pictured,  I  do 
not  know  it. 

Idyllic  beauty  clothes  the  tranquil  scene; 
The  noiseless  river  winds  with  sweet  delays 
[138] 


' 'Below  the  ancitnt  grassy  hill  it  flows" 


A  Cuyp  Landscape 


By  far  champaigns  enwreathed  in  golden  haze, 
And  groves  that  softly  o'er  the  water  lean. 
Amid  the  meadow's  herbage  lush  and  green 

The  quiet  cattle  rest  with  drowsy  gaze, 

The  while  this  sunniest  of  summer  days 
Goes  by  in  blissful  calm  and  peace  serene. 
How  dear  it  were,  amid  these  pleasant  meads, 

These  misty  fields  by  morning  dews  empearled, 
To  pass  our  days  in  unambitious  deeds, 

Forgetful  of  the  fevers  of  the  world ; 
And  like  yon  river  dreamy  in  the  sun 
To  glide  unheard  away  when  life  were  done! 


[139] 


IN  SIR  WILLIAM  TEMPLE'S  GARDEN 

"Fair  Quiet,  have  I  found  thee  here, 
And  Innocence,  thy  sister  dear! 
Your  sacred  plants,  if  here  below, 
Only  among  the  plants  will  grow: 
Society  is  all  but  rude 
To  this  delicious  solitude." 

'UGUST  VII.  There  is  a  singular  charm  about 
Temple's  familiar  essays,  the  earliest  of  the  kind, 
almost,  written  in  England.  They  tell  of  an  am 
ple  leisure,  of  long,  quiet  hours  of  reflection  in  old  brick- 
walled  gardens  and  beside  fish-ponds  unruffled  by  any  but 
the  mildest  of  summer  breezes.  We  easily  step  back  into 
Sir  William's  antique  century,  and  our  vaunted  erudition 
and  our  modern  vanities  slip  from  us  as  the  simple-hearted 
gentleman  leads  us  from  one  parterre  to  another,  and  be 
neath  the  sun-baked  walls  where  hang  his  rich  grapes  and 
warm-cheeked  peaches,  averring  to  us  that  French  con 
noisseurs  have  pronounced  his  fruit  equal  to  any  this  side 
of  Fontainebleau.  Down  the  graveled  paths  we  pass  with 
our  host,  beyond  the  roses  and  slumbrous  poppies,  to  the 
vegetable  beds.  Sir  William,  with  his  acquired  Dutch 
taste,  truly  values  these  homely  quarters; — has  not  King 
William  himself  honored  the  asparagus  with  a  nod  of 
recognition  on  his  last  visit  to  Moor  Park,  and  even 
deigned  to  instruct  Temple's  young  secretary,  Jonathan 
Swift,  in  the  art  of  eating  the  succulent  plant?  Here  we 
listen  to  a  discourse  on  garlic  and  onions  as  sovereign 

[140] 


In  Sir  IF i I  Ham  Temple  s  Garden 

remedies  for  all  decays  of  appetite  and  as  specifics  for  the 
gout.  Our  portly  host  has  himself  felt  the  twinges  of  the 
last-named  complaint,  yet  he  hastens  to  assure  us  with  ele 
gant  euphemism  that  he  has  never  long  submitted  to  the 
constraint  of  a  garlic  diet,  as  being  "offensive  to  the  com 
pany  I  conversed  with."  Elder-berries  and  elder-flowers, 
he  says,  will  drive  out  watery  humours;  though  here  again 
he  frankly  confesses  he  cannot  speak  from  any  consider 
able  experience,  having  "been  always  too  libertine  for  any 
great  and  long  subjections  to  make  the  trials." 

Beside  his  tobacco  plants  he  pauses  to  remark  that  old 
Prince  Maurice  of  Nassau  put  him  upon  taking  a  leaf  of 
the  plant  into  the  nostrils  for  an  hour  each  morning  as  a 
strengthener  of  the  eyesight. 

His  beloved  garden  yields  its  owner  every  simple,  every 
remedy.  Such  prescriptions  as  crabs'  eyes  and  cla\vs  and 
burnt  eggshells  for  indigestion,  to  which  the  family  was 
subject,  Sir  William  rather  scorns,  for  he  turns  as  ever  to 
his  plants  for  a  sure  specific:  "I  have  never  found  any 
thing  of  much  or  certain  effect  [for  indigestion],  besides 
the  eating  of  strawberries,  common  cherries,  white  figs, 
soft  peaches  or  grapes,  before  every  meal,  during  their  sea 
sons;  and,  when  those  are  past,  apples  after  meals;  but  all 
must  be  very  ripe:  And  this,  by  my  own  and  all  my 
friends'  experience  who  have  tried  it,  I  reckon  for  a  spe 
cific  medicine  in  this  illness  so  frequently  complained  of; 
at  least,  for  the  trwo  first,  I  never  knew  them  fail ;  and  the 
usual  quantity  is  about  forty  cherries,  without  swallowing 
either  skin  or  stone."  But  let  us  have  a  care  not  to  eat 
too  plentifully  of  these  delectable  strawberries  and  other 
fruits  at  Moor  Park,  for  did  not  Dean  Swift  attribute  his 

[141] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


life-long  plague  of  giddiness  and  deafness  to  a  surfeit  of 
Sir  William  Temple's  peaches? 

With  such  pleasant  discourse  even  a  kitchen  garden 
becomes  an  enchanted  spot,  and  we  are  willing  listeners  to 
our  kindly  host's  disquisition  on  the  spleen,  ending  with  an 
injunction  against  harboring  fear,  regret  and  melancholy, 
and  with  an  incitement  to  nourish  hope  as  the  sovereign 
balsam  of  life.  So  friendly  is  our  dear  old  host,  so  sweetly 
philosophic,  so  amply  fortified  with  the  homely  common- 
sense  wisdom  of  the  countryside. 

It  was  for  some  such  country  sage  of  elder  days,  surely, 
that  Austin  Dobson  wrote  these  verses: 

"He  liked  the  well-wheel's  creaking  tongue, — 
He  liked  the  thrush  that  stopped  and  sung, — 
He  liked  the  drone  of  flies  among 

His    netted    peaches ; 
He  liked  to  watch  the  sunlight  fall 
Athwart  his  ivied  orchard  wall, 
Or   pause   to   catch   the   cuckoo's   call 

Beyond   the  beeches." 


[142] 


"SWEET  THEMMES!    RUNNE  SOFTLY' 

AUGUST  VIII 

}WEET    THEMMES!  runne  softly,   till  I  end 

my  Song" : 

Old  Spenser's  words  flow  soft  as  any  dream 
This  afternoon  by  Brandywine's  calm  stream 
This  green  untroubled  meadow-side  along. 

Most  clear  it  echoes  down  the  tranquil  stream — 

"Sweet  Thernmes!  runne  softly,  till  I  end  my  Song" ; 
O  it  hath  filled  my  heart  of  memory  long, 

Its  quaint,  rich  music  haunts  me  like  a  dream ! 

It  follows  me  and  haunts  me  like  a  dream 

Whene'er  I  stroll  this  meadow-side  along: 
"Sweet  Themmes!  runne  softly,  till  I  end  my  Song," — 
Old  Spenser  chants  forever  by  the  stream. 

O  heart  of  memory,  cherish  it  for  long, 
And  let  old  Spenser's  golden  music  stream 
Forever  down  the  meadows  of  my  dream — 

"Sweet  Themmesf  runne  softly,  till  I  end  my  Song." 


[143] 


IN  QUIET  WATERS 


"It  is  not  idleness  to  steep  the  soul 
In  nature's  beauty:  rather  every  day 
We  are  idle  letting  beauteous  things  go  by 
Unheld,  or  scarce  perceived.     We  cannot  dream 
Too  deeply,  nor  o'erprize  the  mood  of  love, 
When  it  comes  on  us  strongly,  and  the  hour 
Is  ripe  for  thought." 

'UGUST  X.  On  this  bland  and  serene  day  of  Au 
gust  I  left  our  quiet  Brandywine  fields,  to  journey 
southward  on  the  series  of  curving  ponds  and  con 
necting  canals  that  afford  a  waterway  between  the  Dela 
ware  river  and  the  Chesapeake. 

On  this  side  of  Flanders,  one  could  hardly  look  upon 
so  sleepy  and  tranquil  a  panorama  of  low  farm-lands,  an 
tique  villages  and  green,  reedy  shores.  How  I  wish  the 
artist's  power  were  mine,  that  I  might  put  on  canvas  a 
tithe  of  all  this  slumbrous  beauty  and  sweet  pastoral 


repose 


Mists  hang  over  the  distant  \voods  and  make  them 
most  pale  and  remote;  cattle  graze  in  the  rich  deep  mea 
dows;  and  in  the  atmosphere  brood  the  utter  peace  and 
restfulness  which  come  over  the  countryside  in  the  wreeks 
following  harvest,  when  scythe  and  fork  are  hung  up  once 
more  and  great  hay-stacks  and  teeming  barns  tell  of  the 
summer's  yield. 

On  and  away  our  steam-boat  glided,  over  the  silent, 
rush-margined  waters,  passing  from  one  lovely  view  to  an- 

[144] 


In  Uuiet  W^aters 


other.  Great  white  flowers  starred  the  green  acres  of 
swamp-grass,  feathery  willows  drooped  in  soft  clusters 
over  the  stream-side,  wide  patches  of  weed  shone  in  many 
a  shade  of  brown  and  yellow  and  sumptuous  purple;  while 
the  tow-path,  with  its  dull  coloring  of  red,  wound  ever 
away  behind  the  verdant  bank.  There  was  many  a  little 
pond  in  the  adjacent  fields,  where  water-lilies  floated  be 
yond  the  swaying  cat-tails;  and  over  these  unruffled  wa 
ter-mirrors,  small  white-breasted  birds  flitted  and  veered 
and  sounded  their  blithe  notes. 

We  moved  slowly  by  little  garden-slopes,  odorous  with 
hop-vines  and  bright  with  old-time  flowers,  with  apple- 
orchards  and  fields  of  tall  corn  beyond.  White  sails  now 
and  then  appeared  in  the  wider  ponds,  and  often  we  came 
upon  lazy  fisher-folk,  half  asleep  in  the  sunshine,  their 
poles  dipping  into  the  noiseless  stream.  In  the  deep  locks 
we  halted  while  the  great  gates  slowly  swung  open  and 
the  green  water  gurgled  and  foamed  up  from  under  its 
imprisoning  barriers,  and  village  loungers  loitered  about 
the  banks  to  watch  the  only  spectacle  that  breaks  their 
day's  monotony. 

The  passengers  felt  the  spell  of  the  mild,  placid  atmos 
phere,  and  little  children  crooned  or  looked  dreamily  at 
the  white  clouds  and  the  misty  vapors  of  that  idyllic  af 
ternoon.  Up  from  the  cabin  came  plaintive  music ;  and 
elderly  negroes,  on  their  way  to  visit  their  old  homes  in 
Virginia  or  on  the  "East'n  Sho',"  chatted  in  their  quaint 
and  not  immelodious  dialect. 

Like  a  piece  of  Holland  seemed  this  calm,  untroubled 
land,  with  its  pastoral  industries,  its  sleepy  atmosphere 
and  its  peaceful  felicities.  Not  more  tranquil  or  dream- 

[145] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


like  could  be  "the  lazy  Scheldt  or  wandering  Po"  that 
Goldsmith  sang,  nor  those  placid  Flemish  streams  whereon 
a  later  lover  of  Old-World  waters,  Robert  Louis  Steven 
son,  drifted  and  mused. 

"It  could  not  be  more  quiet;  peace  is  here 
Or  nowhere;   days  unruffled  by  the  gale 
Of  public  news  or  private;  years  that  pass 
Forgetfully." 

There  are,  in  that  quiet  land  and  along  those  still 
waters,  the  possibilities  of  a  hundred  pictures.  The  pho 
tograph  camera  is  used  probably  every  day  from  the  decks 
of  these  vessels;  not  so  often,  I  fancy,  comes  an  artist, 
one  who  can  interpret  landscape,  catching  its  spiritual  sig 
nificance  and  giving  the  scene  back  to  us  clothed  with 
a  glamour  and  a  charm  which  no  camera  can  render.  This 
little  unsung  bit  of  Delaware  and  Maryland  possesses 
scenery  worthy  the  brush  of  a  Cuyp  or  a  Corot.  One  who 
looks  upon  it  in  receptive  mood,  enjoying  to  the  full  its 
pastoral  and  watery  loveliness,  retains  the  impression  of 
many  perfect  landscapes.  Weary  of  the  noise  and  fever 
and  fruitless  hurry  of  our  vaunted  modern  life,  one  may 
here  lose  himself  awhile,  and  drink  of  God's  beauty  with 
a  free  and  grateful  heart. 


[146] 


AFTER  HARVEST 


AUGUST  XII 

fields  where  lately  waved  the  yellow  wheat 
And  where  the  farmers  piled  the  fragrant  hay, 
The  meadow-lark  is  calling  clear  and  sweet, 
And  through  the  drowsy  day 
The  clouds  drift  by  above  the  peaceful  hills; — 
I  watch  their  soft  reflections  in  the  tide, 
Here  where  doth  smoothly  glide 
The  Brandywine  by  ancient  Slumberville. 

In  old  sequestered  garden-alleys  drowned 

In   utter  dreamfulness  and   flowery  ease, 
The  poppy  petals  fall  without  a  sound, 

And   lazy  soft-winged   bees 
Follow  their  honeyed  quest  with  murmurs  faint 

'Mid  altheas  and  swaying  hollyhocks, 

And  stately  purple  phlox, 
And  bergamot  and  lady-slippers  quaint. 

I  saw  last  month  among  the  Goshen  dales 

The  sun-browned  farmers  haul  the  harvest  in  ; 
I  saw  them  busy  in  Pocopson  vales; 

And  here  in  green  Newlin 
I  watched  the  mowers  in  among  the  hay 

Heaping  the  windrows  long  and  straight  and  clean, 

And  sturdy  reapers  glean 
The  nodding  wheat  on  hillsides  far  away. 

[147] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


And  here  one  evening  as  I  lingered  late 

I  saw  the  last  load  coming  down  the  hill, 
Sweep  'neath  the  cherry  tree  beside  the  gate 

And  past  the  mossy  mill ; 
And  when  those  final  sheaves  of  rustling  oats 

Were  added  to  the  barn's  abundant  store, 

I  heard  by  the  wide  door 
The  "Harvest  Home!"  ring  out  from  lusty  throats. 

But  now  no  more  the  harvest  mirth  is  heard 

By  shady  orchard-side  or  straggling  hedge; 
The  fields  are  silent,  save  where  one  sweet  bird 

Chirps  by  the  greenwood  edge; 
Only  the  locusts  chirr  with  pipings  high, 

Only  the  melancholy  ring-dove  grieves 

Among  the  willow  leaves, 
And  rain-crows  send  from  far  their  querulous  cry. 

Along  the  dusty  road  wild-carrots  nod, 

And  thistle-down  is  wafted  through  the  air; 
On  woodland  banks  the  early  golden-rod 

Is  swaying  richly  fair; 
And  in  the  night  beneath  the  golden  moon 

Ripe  apples  drop  beside  the  orchard  wall, 

And  oft  with  eerie  call 
The  shadowy  owls  give  forth  their  spectral  croon. 

How  softly  now  the  water-willows  show 
Beside  the  brooks  their  delicate  gray-green, 

And  lovely  as  a  landscape  of  Corot 
Appears  each  pastoral  scene. 
[148] 


After  Harvest 


Old  Chester  County's  tranquil  fields  and  woods 
Are  sleeping  in  a  languid  atmosphere, 
And  far  away  and  near 

The  misty  dream  of  August  basks  and  broods. 

With  tender  undersong  the  Brandywine 

Flows  down  by  mossy  stone  and  quivering  reed, 
And  he  who  rightly  hears  its  chant  divine 

May  take  but  slender  heed 
Of  dulling  cares  that  vex  the  passing  hour; 

Kind  Nature's  nursling  well  may  muse  apart, 

For  he,  the  glad  of  heart, 
Is  brother  born  of  cloud  and  stream  and  flower. 


[149] 


HUMPHRY  MARSHALL 


'UGUST  XV.  The  old  village  of  Marshallton, 
two  or  three  miles  up  in  the  hills,  contains  two 
notable  features, — an  ancient  Quaker  graveyard, 
unsurpassable  for  its  serenity  and  pensive  charm,  and  the 
home  of  Chester  County's  renowned  botanist,  Humphry 
Marshall.  The  ample  and  dignified  old  dwelling-house  is 
the  heart  of  the  sleepy  hamlet,  its  one  noble  relic  of  the 
life  of  long  ago.  Surrounded  by  stately  trees  and  an 
tique  shrubbery,  the  old  mansion  invites  the  passer-by  to 
pause  and  reflect  upon  the  original  owner  and  his  ardent 
devotion  to  American  flora. 

Son  of  Abraham  Marshall,  who  came  over  from  Der 
byshire  in  the  late  seventeenth  century  and  married  the 
daughter  of  James  Hunt,  one  of  William  Penn's  compan 
ions, — Humphry  Marshall  had  an  inheritance  of  sterling 
Quaker  character.  He  built  this  durable  house  with  his 
own  hands,  somewhere  about  the  year  1773,  and  planted 
his  botanic  garden  with  the  best  native  trees  and  shrubs 
and  many  interesting  foreign  species.  His  oaks,  pines, 
and  magnolias,  "all  planted  by  the  hands  of  the  venerable 
founder,"  as  Dr.  Darlington,  his  biographer,  tells  us, 
"have  now  attained  to  a  majestic  altitude." 

It  seems  likely  that  Humphry  Marshall  felt  drawn  to 
botany  and  horticulture  through  the  influence  of  his  dis 
tinguished  cousin,  John  Bartram.  To  Marshall's  zeal  in 
making  known  to  his  European  correspondents  the  treas 
ures  of  American  sylva  and  flora,  posterity  owes  a  large 
debt.  I  never  pass  the  fine  old  mansion  and  grove  with- 

[150] 


Humphry  Marshall 


out  a  silent  benediction,  and  a  wistful  thought  of  the  se 
rene  enjoyments  here  pursued  by  the  noble  old-time  Quak 
er  botanist.  Happily  his  gentle  science  is  still  kept  up  by 
country  Quakers  here  and  there  in  Chester  County ;  it  is 
the  sole  branch  of  Nature-study  on  which  these  refined 
and  quiet  people  pride  themselves. 

Memorials  of  John  Bartrarn  and  Humphry  Marshall, 
which  our  later  botanist,  Dr.  William  Darlington,  pub 
lished  in  1849,  furnishes  some  charming  reading.  Here 
one  may  learn  how  Dr.  John  Fothergill,  whose  garden 
near  London  was  noted  for  its  Americana,  was  "obliged" 
for  his  treasures  "to  thy  diligence  and  care,"  as  he  wrote 
to  Marshall.  In  his  quaint  epistles  to  the  New  World 
botanist,  Dr.  Fothergill  constantly  mentions  the  plants  he 
most  desires. 

"There  is  a  kind  of  Dogwood,  whose  calyx  is  its  great 
est  beauty.  ...  I  want  a  few  plants  of  it;  and, 
indeed,  it  would  be  always  agreeable  to  receive  young, 
well-rooted  plants  of  any  kind."  Birds,  too,  he  occasion 
ally  requests, — "Would  it  be  impossible  to  send  one  of 
those  pretty  little  Owls,  alive?  I  wish  I  could  see  one." 
(What  a  personal  note,  that!)  "Most  of  the  captains 
in  the  trade,  I  believe,  would  endeavour  to  take  care  of  it, 
and  a  Mocking-bird,  if  they  could  easily  be  had."  Hum 
phry  even  sent  over  a  tortoise,  and  the  good  doctor,  not 
aware  of  the  creature's  sluggish  habits,  wrote  back,  "He 
looked  uncommonly  heavy  about  the  eyes,  and  did  not  care 
for  stirring." 


[151] 


COLIN  CLOUTE" 


My  summer  days  beside  the  Brandywine 

Are  blent  with  dreams  of  old-world  Lancashire 

And  old-world  shepherd  songs.     Thy  Calender, 

For  many  a  year,  great  Spenser,  have  I  loved : 

Thy  rustic  dialogues  I  love, — their  quaint 

And  honest  friendliness,  their  kindly  words 

'Twixt  simple-hearted  country  folk.     I  love 

Thy  jocund  old-time  carols,  beautiful 

With  music  rippling  like  the  meadow  streams 

Where  feed  the  white  flocks  of  thy  shepherd  lads, — 

With  plaintive  love-notes  sung  to  lasses  blithe 

As  summer  breezes, — and  with  dear  delight 

In  all  the  sweet  old  English  flowers  that  grew 

In  Colin  Clout's  idyllic  countryside. 

"UGUST  XVI.  "A  masterpiece,  if  any" — so  seemed 
to  good  Michael  Drayton  the  Shepheardes  Calen 
der  of  Spenser;  and  herein  Drayton  showed  him 
self  an  admirable  judge,  worthy  to  be  followed  by  poster 
ity.  These  twelve  "aeglogues,  proportionable  to  the  twelve 
monethes"  and  inscribed  to  Philip  Sidney,  "president  of 
noblesse  and  of  chevalree,"  are  indeed  a  treasure-house 
of  quaint  dialogue,  of  idyllic  loves  and  sorrows,  of  homely 
countryside  wisdom  and  beautiful  English  landscapes,  and 
all  presented  in  such  a  diction  and  melody  as  England  had 
not  heard  since  Chaucer's  voice  fell  silent.  The  poem  has, 
too,  an  autobiographic  charm,  the  shepherd  Colin  Cloute 
being  Spenser's  own  self.  Colin  Cloute,  "under  which 

[152] 


"Colin  Cloute" 


name  this  Poete  secretly  shadoweth  himself,  as  sometimes 
did  Virgil  under  the  name  of  Tityrus," — name  ever  dear 
to  the  poet,  and  resumed  by  him  in  riper  age  after  com 
posing  his  great  and  magnificent  epic, — seems  to  call  up  a 
host  of  Spenser's  ancestral  associations,  carrying  us  straight 
to  that  antique  Lancashire  where  his  family  had  long 
been  settled.  Behind  the  almost  archaic  vocabulary  of 
the  Calender,  in  its  innocent  Arcadian  flavor  and  down 
right  simplicity,  one  readily  constructs  a  mind-picture 
of  an  ancient  provincial  countryside,  a  quaint  neighborhood 
where  kindliness  and  home-bred  affection  abounded,  where 
old-time  farming  and  grazing  mingled  with  rustic  holi 
days  to  fill  the  quiet  lives  of  a  contented  and  thrifty 
folk, — a  corner  of  an  English  shire  where  an  inherent 
family  strain  of  religion  and  idealism  have  combined  with 
staunch  character  to  produce  in  the  right  season  that 
gifted  son  of  the  house  whom  Milton  was  one  day  to  call, 
in  his  matchless  and  superb  way,  "our  sage  and  serious 
poet  Spenser." 

The  shepherd-names  in  these  pastorals  are  for  the  most 
part  frankly  and  rustically  English,  good  honest  names 
that  smack  of  hayfield  and  byre  and  croft, — Cuddie, 
Willye,  Thomalin,  Piers,  Diggon  Davie,  Hobbinoll, — the 
last  standing  for  Master  Gabriel  Harvey,  that  "very  spe- 
ciall  and  most  familiar  freend,  whom  he  entirely  and  extra 
ordinarily  beloved."  It  has  not  been  my  fortune  to  visit 
in  Spenser's  Lancashire, — that  is  still  a  cherished  dream, — 
but  in  rural  Oxfordshire  I  have  watched  the  nibbling 
white-fleeced  flocks  straying  in  the  soft  emerald  pastures 
besides  the  Thames;  and  in  the  lonely  lads  who,  lying 
beside  the  hawthorn  hedges,  tended  the  sheep,  I  have  fan- 

[153] 


Brandywine  Days 


cied  the  modern  counterpart  of  Cuddle  and  Diggon  and 
Piers,  although  I  confess  I  never  heard  them  pipe  or  sing 
as  piped  and  sang  those  jocund  shepherd-lads  in  the  pages 
of  Spenser. 

Of  the  sumptuous  golden  harmony,  the  mellifluous 
cadences,  and  the  unfailing  nobility  of  ideal,  that  make 
the  Faerie  Queene  glorious,  there  is  abundant  promise  in 
these  youthful  eclogues.  And  so  I  have  ever  been  of  the 
same  mind  as  Drayton  concerning  the  Shepheardes  Calen 
der,  and  as  Sidney,  who  averred  that  Spenser  "hath  much 
Poetrie  in  his  Eglogues;  indeede  worthy  of  the  reading,  if 
I  be  not  deceived."  If  a  choice  must  be  made  where  all 
is  so  inviting,  this  melodious  praise  and  honoring  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  by  honest  Hobbinoll,  in  the  April  "aegloga," 
may  be  taken  as  typical, — 

"Of  fayre  Elisa  be  your  silver  song, 

That  blessed  wight, 
The  flowre  of  Virgins;  may  shee  florish  long 

In   princely   plight! 

For  shee  is  Syrinx  daughter  without  spotte, 
Which   Pan,  the  shepheards  God,  of  her  begot: 

So  sprong  her  grace 

Of   heavenly   race, 
No  mortal!  blemishe  may  her  blotte. 

"Tell  me,   have  ye   scene  her   angelicke   face, 

Like  Phoebe   fayre? 
Her  heavenly  haveour,  her  princely  grace, 

Can   you   well   compare? 

The  Redde  rose  medled  with  the  White  yfere, 
In  either  cheeke  depeincten  lively  chere : 

Her   modest   eye, 

Her   Majestic, 
Where  have  you  scene  the  like  but  there? 

[154] 


u >Colin  Cloute" 


"Bring  hether  the  Pincke  and  purple  Cullambine, 

With   Gelliflowres; 
Bring  Coronations,  and  Sops  in  wine, 

Worne  of  Paramoures ; 

Strowe  me  the  ground  with  Daffadowndillies, 
And  Cowslips,  and  Kingcups,  and  loved  Lillies; 

The    pretie    Pawnee, 

And  the  Chevisaunce, 
Shall  match  with  the  fayre  flowre  Delice." 


[155J 


A  DEAD  POET 


"Where  children  spell,  athwart  the  churchyard  gate, 

His  name  and  life's  brief  date, 
Pray  for  him,  gentle  souls,  whoe'er  you  be." 

'UGUST  XIX.  "The  cloud-capp'd  towers,  the 
gorgeous  palaces"  of  the  air  rear  themselves  ma 
jestically  aloft  this  afternoon.  A  splendid  as 
semblage  of  white  clouds  moves  in  solemn  slow  proces 
sion  down  the  sky  toward  the  deep  and  dreamy  west. 
Like  navies  of  stately  argosies  they  seem,  aerial  galleons 
streaming  along  the  zenith  upon  the  blue  ocean  of  the 
heavens. 

How  he  felt  the  sublimity  of  the  clouds — that  friend 
of  mine  who  is  no  more!  Every  beautiful  and  noble 
thing  touched  him — the  first  anemones  of  April,  the  har 
vest-field  with  its  sheaves,  the  gleam  and  flash  of  wide  wa 
ters,  and  the  quietude  of  solitary  forests.  In  the  words  of  a 
fellow-poet  whose  verse  he  admired,  he  might  have  said, 

"I  have  learned 

More  from  trie  hush  of  forests  than  from  speech 
Of  many  teachers." 

But  most  he  loved,  I  think,  "the  air  of  mountain  sum 
mits  and  head  waters  of  rivers,"  to  use  his  own  words. 
Indeed  it  was  his  love  of  the  solemn  mountains  that 
brought  death  to  him.  Wandering  too  early  in  the  year 
among  their  frozen  fastness,  he  "fell  on  sleep"  amid  the 
cold,  pitiless  purity  of  the  snow;  and  the  first  flush  of  the 

[156] 


A  Dead  Poet 


unfolding  springtime  came  without  the  welcome  of  his 
alert  step  along  the  wood  paths  or  his  affectionate  gaze 
upon  the  "greening  meadow-land." 

On  Nature's  highway  he  was  a  Passionate  Pilgrim, 
truly;  and  his  keen  impressions  he  wove  into  delicate 
verse-forms.  The  sweet  sincerity  and  the  truth  and  san 
ity  of  his  character  cannot  perish  from  the  remembrance 
of  his  friends.  Let  one  of  these  offer  a  tribute,  slender 
though  it  be,  to  his  fair  memory, — 

The  tender  loveliness  of  young  spring  skies, 
The  gush  and  purl  of  pebbled  streams, 

The  sacred  solitude  of  lofty  woods 
Enwrapped  in  vernal  dreams, 

Faint,  sweet  earth-odors  rising  from  the  fields, 

The  primal  fragrance  of  the  year — 
Alas,  these  now  must  come  unheralded 

Of  one  who  held  them  dear! 

For   nevermore   by    "greening   meadow-land," 

By  wood-walk  cool  or  lonely  hill, 
In  reverie  will  our  young  Thyrsis  stray 

With  poet-heart  a-thrill. 

No  more  in  hidden,  far-off  forest  dells 

For  April's  first  flowers  will  he  seek, 
Nor  thread  the  groves  of  "sunlit  sassafras" 

By  Swarthmore's  winding  creek. 

Again  the  pale  hepaticas  come  forth, 
And  Quaker-ladies  star  the  mold; 
[157] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


But  he,  our  lost  and  loved  one,  cometh  not 
To  greet  them  as  of  old. 

For  as  with  those  shy,  tender  things  he  loved, 
Blossoms  and  buds  of  fragile  bloom, 

Windflower,  veronica  and  violet, 
His  was  an  early  doom. 

Softly  the  beautiful  spirit  winged  its  way 

Like  music  fading  in  the  night ; 
He  fell  asleep  amid  our  mortal  shade 

To  wake  in  the  great  light. 

And  in  the  plash  of  April's  silvery  rains 

That  blur  the  vale  with  misty  tears, 
I  seemed  to  hear  the  young  Spring  make  lament 

For  his  unfinished  years. 

What  mystery,  what  beauty,  now  is  his 
In  shining  realms,  we  may  not  know  ; 

But  this  we  know, — his  days  were  blameless,  pure 
As  that  enshrouding  snow 

Swept  by  the  winds  whose  sombre  requiem 
Deep  in  our  grieving  hearts  shall  ring 

And  mar,  like  some  untimely  winter  blast, 
The  joyfulness  of  spring. 


[158] 


"  The  u-oodland  cool  and  still 


CITIES  OF  THE  HEART 


AUGUST  XX 


®HO  has  not  some  city  —  the  city  par  excellence  — 
cherished   by  him   in  memory,   or  only   in   imagi 
nation  it  may  be,  which   is  to  him  what  Venice 
was  to  Lord  Byron? 

"I  loved  her  from  my  boyhood,  she  to  me 
Was  as  a  fairy   city  of  the  heart." 

Whether  it  be  Oxford  or  Edinburgh,  Florence  or 
Heidelberg,  Charleston  or  green  Amherst,  it  forms  for  us 
a  beautiful  background,  seen  or  dreamed  of,  which  no 
new-found  city  may  dislodge  from  our  affection,  no 
newly-pictured  metropolis  ever  surpass. 

So  I  think  this  fresh,  fragrant  morning,  while  reading 
that  fascinating  volume  "The  American  Scene,"  wherein 
Henry  James  paints  fresh  word-pictures  of  certain  of 
our  older  American  cities.  Beneath  the  elaborate  pano 
plies  wherewith  Mr.  James  delights  to  deck  his  medita 
tions,  the  sympathetic  reader  discovers  a  very  subtle 
power  of  apprehending  the  essential  spirit  of  the  partic 
ular  city  under  discussion.  This  gifted  cosmopolitan 
confesses  allegiance  to  no  special  one  of  our  old  towns  — 
his  love  is  too  catholic  for  that;  yet  he  has  spent  his  best 
emotion  upon  each  place  while  visiting  and  writing  of  it. 
The  result  is  an  analysis  hardly  to  be  equaled  by  any 
living  prose-writer;  I  shall  not  say  by  any  living  poet, 
for  we  have  more  than  one  among  us,  I  believe,  who 

[159J 


Brandywine  Days 


might  put  into  a  sonnet  or  a  twilight  song  the  whole 
spiritual  aspect  of  Manhattan,  or  of  New  Orleans 
dreaming  in  the  sunlight.  Has  not  Wordsworth,  in  four 
teen  lines,  painted  for  all  time  vast,  quiet  London  sleep 
ing  in  early  morning  mist? 

"And  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still." 

But  another  story  is  that — of  the  poets.  Before 
leaving  them  I  may  say,  however,  that  Henry  James'  essay 
on  Baltimore  is  as  near  being  poetry — in  its  mellow, 
loving  musing  on  the  secluded  and  stately  capital  of 
Maryland — as  could  be  desired,  yet  with  just  enough 
smiling  playfulness  to  keep  his  mood  on  this  side  idolatry. 
"The  deep,  soft  general  note;"  the  embowering  foliage 
that  creates  "great  classic  serenities  of  shade"  almost  in 
the  manner  of  Claude  or  of  Turner;  "the  sweet  old 
Carroll  house,  nestling  under  its  wood  in  the  late  June 
afternoon,  and  with  something  vaguely  haunted  in  its 
lonely  refinement" — what  Baltimorean  but  will  feel 
more  keenly  his  attachment  to  the  old  city  after  reading 
these  and  like  matchless  bits  of  portraiture?  And  so  of 
Owen  Wister's  effective  and  appealing  apprehension  of 
Charleston's  sorrowful  old-world  charm  and  high-bred 
inherited  grace,  here  and  there  throughout  his  "Lady 
Baltimore."  Mr.  James  and  Mr.  Wister  have  given  us, 
if  we  be  sufficiently  sympathetic,  at  least  two  new  cities 
of  the  heart  which  we  take  unto  ourselves  by  very  benev 
olent  assimilation. 

Pierre  Loti  must  come  to  mind  in  any  such  consider 
ation.  He  and  Lafcadio  Hearn,  when  we  are  in  the  mood 
for  it,  can  give  us  gorgeous  coloring  and  lovely  harmon- 

[160] 


The  Cities  of  the  Heart 


ies  of  light  in  their  rendition  of  a  city's  particular  atmos 
phere  and  peculiar  beauty.  For  Loti's  new  story,  "Dis 
enchanted,"  yields  a  brilliant  picture  that  will  delight 
any  to  whom  Constantinople  is  one  of  these  cities  of  the 
heart.  All  the  house  of  old  Stamboul  that  stood  low 
down  by  the  sands  seemed,  at  sunset,  he  writes,  "blurred 
and  blotted  out,  as  it  were,  by  the  eternal  violet  haze  of 
the  evening,  a  mist  of  vapor  and  smoke.  Stamboul 
changed  like  a  mirage;  no  details  were  now  visible — 
neither  the  decay  nor  the  misery,  nor  the  hideousness  of 
some  of  the  modern  structures;  it  was  a  mere  mass  in 
outline,  dark  purple  with  edges  of  gold,  a  colossal  city 
in  cut  jasper,  bristling  with  spires  and  domes,  set  up  as  a 
screen  to  shut  out  a  conflagration  in  heaven." 

Better  still  than  the  reading  of  it  is,  of  course,  the 
personal  experience.  To  see  many-towered  Oxford  dream 
ing  beside  the  sleepy  Thames,  and  to  hear  her  silver 
chimes  pealing  the  vesper-hour,  as  one  lingers  in  old 
Worcester  College  quadrangle,  that  "beautiful  green 
seclusion  with  its  sloping  bank  of  the  most  exquisite  turf, 
its  old  buildings,  and  the  vistas  of  boscage  beyond, — 
wholly  away  from  the  noisy  world ;" — to  watch  Edinburgh 
Castle  lift  its  ancient  turrets  against  a  purple  and  orange 
sunset  sky; — to  stroll  under  the  green  elms  of  Amherst 
on  a  magical  night  of  summer  moonlight; — to  see,  from 
Riverside  drive,  the  Hudson  and  all  her  serried  shipping 
fade  into  the  rose  and  silver  of  twilight; — how  such 
experiences  touch  the  very  springs  of  pathos  and  give  us 
unforgetable  memory-pictures  of  our  Cities  of  the  Heart! 


[161] 


MY  LADY  SLUMBERS" 


UGUST  XXI.  The  fifth  birthday  of  little 
"Bunny"  of  the  thoughtful  eyes.  All  day  he 
and  the  band  of  bonnie  cousins  have  made  merry, 
trooping  over  the  grass  with  shout  and  song,  sailing  their 
boats  in  the  pellucid  shallows  of  the  stream,  and  at  noon 
sharing  the  birthday  feast  beneath  the  old  apple  tree.  And 
when  they  joined  hands  and  danced  gleefully  in  a  ring 
over  the  exquisite  sward, — Bunny  and  Brown-Eyes  and 
Ray  and  the  other  sweet  bairns, — old  John  Lyly's  playful 
lines  came  to  mind, — 

"Trip  it,  little  urchins  all ! 
Lightly  as  the  little  bee, 
Two  by  two,  and  three  by  three." 

It  was  wholly  charming,  the  series  of  pictures  these 
little  innocents  unconsciously  presented.  Here  was  sub 
ject-matter  for  painter  and  poet  truly; — but  how  many 
sights  like  these  pass  by  unrecorded !  Nay,  not  wholly  so, 
for  do  they  not  impress  themselves  indelibly  in  the  memory 
of  the  parents  and  friends  of  children,  there  ever  to  remain 
as  a  joy  and  a  consolation  ?  Yet,  too  beautiful  almost  for 
words,  they  must  fail  of  record  save  on  the  tablets  of  the 
heart! 

"Who  shall  explain  this  lovely  thing 

To  generations  yet  to  be? 
Will   evanescent  beauty  wing 
Her  flight  to  dim  futurity?" 

Now  the  tired  children  lie  dreaming  after  their  happy 
[162] 


"The  brook 
Sings  on  with  ceaseless  music ' ' 


"My  Lady  Slumbe?^ 


hours  in  the  sun;  the  great  white  cloud-land  has  melted 
into  the  dim  purple  of  twilight;  from  the  shadowy  fields 
draped  in  mist  floats  the  faint  tinkle  of  cowbells;  and  the 
utter  quietude  of  a  summer  night  is  closing  down  upon 
our  valley  and  lonely  hills.  Then,  as  the  moon  rises  in 
pallid  radiance  and  swims  slowly  above  the  belt  of  mists, 
a  boat  puts  out  on  the  stream;  clear  voices  are  lifted  in 
song,  and  over  the  tranquil  air  vibrate  the  majestic  meas 
ures, — 

"Integer   vitae  scelerisque   purus 

Non  eget  Mauris  jaculis,  nee  arcu, 
Nee  venenatis  gravida  sagittis, 
Fusee,  pharetra." 

One  of  the  stateliest  of  all  songs,  I  have  ever  accounted 
that  ode  of  Horace.  That,  and  Ben  Jonson's  "Drink  to 
me  only  with  thine  eyes,"  as  chanted  to  their  ancient  music, 
are  magnificent, — there  is  no  other  word  to  describe  them ! 
The  first  song  we  learned  from  a  rare  teacher  who  made 
Virgil  and  Horace  and  Catullus  living  voices  through  his 
fine  penetration  and  subtle  appreciation;  the  second,  with 
its  solemn  and  noble  sweetness,  was  learned  from  another 
fine  teacher  and  literary  guide,  who  brought  to  his  read 
ing  of  the  Elizabethan  poets  a  charm  that  was  unforget- 
able. 

And  now  the  plangent  and  sonorous  Latin  dies  away 
on  the  shadows,  and  there  follows  the  light  harmony  of 
"My  Lady  Slumbers."  As  the  delicate  rhythm  of  the 
song  rises  up  from  the  drifting  boat,  with  its  recurrent 
refrain,  "My  Lady  Slumbers,"  I  think  of  the  little  folk 
dreaming  behind  yonder  curtained  pane,  hushed  and 

[163] 


Brandy  wine  Day. 


soothed  to  balmy  sleep.  Fragrant  darkness  clothes  them 
round ;  the  old  ancestral  Mansion  holds  them  securely  in 
sheltering  arms ;  and  they  gather  for  the  morrow  fresh 
buoyancy  and  radiant  healthfulness. 


[164J 


COUNTRY  PEACE 


AUGUST  XXII 


OUNTRY  peace,  the  warbling  birds, 
Friendly  faces  and  friendly  words, 


Grassy  fields  and  tranquil  streams, 
Cloud-lands  beautiful  as  dreams, 

Singing  brooks  that  wander  slow 
Where  buttercups  and  daisies  grow, 

Old  barn  roofs  where  drowsy  doves 
Sit  in  the  sun  and  tell  their  loves, 

Robins  whistling  clear  and  sweet 
Over  the  acres  of  swaying  wheat, 

Children  playing  among  the  flowers 
And  singing  away  the  sunny  hours, 

Rosy  country  girls  and  boys 
Filling  the  day  with  happy  noise, 

Old-time    garden-walks    that   seem 
Haunts  of  reverie  and  dream, 

Poets'  books  to  read  at  ease 
Under  the  bowering  orchard  trees, 

Memories  that  wistful  go 
Back  to  the  golden  Long  Ago, 

[165] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


Faith  that  He  who  rules  above 
Encompasses  this  earth  with  love, 

Faith  that  His  mercies  never  cease: — 
These  are  the  joys  of  country  peace. 


[166] 


UP  STREAM 


a 


UGUST  XXIII.     Robert  Louis  Stevenson  makes 
his  canoe  tell  of  its  quiet  wanderings, — 

"I  with  the  leaping  trout 
Wind,   among  lilies,   in   and  out; 
I,    the    unnamed,    inviolate, 
Green,  rustic  rivers  navigate ; 
My  dipping  paddle  scarcely  shakes 
The  berry  in  the  bramble-brakes; 
Still  forth  on  my  green  way  I  wend 
Beside   the   cottage   garden-end ; 
And  by  the  nested  angler  fare, 
And  take  the  lovers  unaware. 
By   willow   wood   and   water-wheel 
Speedily  fleets  my  touching  keel; 
By   all   retired   and   shady  spots 
Where   prosper   dim   forget-me-nots." 

Up  stream  I  paddled  on  the  Brandywine  this  morn 
ing,  between  pastures  redolent  of  August's  yellow  prim 
roses  and  rag-weed  and  the  pungent  life-everlasting;  be 
side  little  thickets  of  buttonwood  saplings  and  feathery 
willow's  that  dip  into  the  current  and  sway  perpetually; 
over  glassy  reaches  where  only  an  occasional  skimming 
bird  or  leaping  fish  broke  the  stillness  of  the  watery  mir 
ror,  and  where  a  yellow  leaf  or  two  drifting  down, — early 
premonition  of  autumnal  decay — seemed  like  "the  fairy- 
people's  boats,"  as  little  Ray  loves  to  name  them.  Mild 
cows  raised  their  heads  in  quiet  astonishment  at  the  inva 
sion  of  their  retirement ;  congresses  of  light  water-bugs 
scudded  hither  and  thither  before  the  prow,  and  assembled 

[167] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


again  to  discuss  this  visitor  from  Brobdingnag.  In  high 
boughs  the  locusts  hummed  in  strident  chorus;  blue  her 
ons  flapped  past  on  leisurely  wing;  and  one  friendly  little 
green-backed  bird  hopped  from  twig  to  twig  of  an  over 
arching  ash,  observing  with  his  bright  black  eyes  the 
strange  craft  and  the  red  paddle  blades. 

Beautiful  the  swift  rush  and  silver  laughter  of  green 
water  down  the  rapids  where  I  waded  and  drew  the  canoe 
up  the  turbid  slope ;  beautiful  the  sand  beds  in  the  calmer 
shallows,  flecked  with  sunshine  and  haunted  by  shoals 
of  glancing  minnows;  and  beautiful  the  varied  pebbles 
beneath  the  clear  element, — mossy  green,  peacock  blue, 
gleaming  black,  but  most  of  them  golden-brown,  or  fair 
white  laved  to  an  immaculate  purity. 

"O    the   clean    gravel! 
O   the  smooth  stream !" 

Here  in  these  up-stream  meadows,  buried  amid  their 
encircling  hills,  is  peace,  surely!  Here  is  the  same  un 
changed  primeval  little  river  of  the  far  centuries  when  the 
Indians  named  it  "Susqueco"  or  "Wawassan"  and  here 
pitched  their  leathern  homes,  and  called  the  fish  and  the 
water-fowl  their  brothers.  But  a  distant  farm  bell  ringing 
the  men  to  dinner  calls  me  back  from  those  vanished  In 
dian  scenes;  and  rushing  down  the  foaming,  plashing 
rapids  to  the  delicious  melody  of  the  cool  lapping  wavelets, 
and  out  along  the  willowed  banks  and  "above  the  golden 
gravel,"  the  canoe  sweeps  out  again  into  the  wide  calm 
reaches  between  the  familiar  pastures  and  in  sight  of 
the  red  gables  of  the  old  House. 


[168] 


UP  THE  DELAWARE 


gUGUST  XXVI.  Enamored  of  the  charm  of  the 
water  journey  toward  Baltimore,  I  to-day  essayed 
the  broad  Delaware.  Watching,  from  a  quiet 
corner  of  the  deck,  the  green  shores,  the  brimming  and 
shining  river  and  the  passing  craft,  memory  transported 
me  to  the  old-world  streams  of  England.  I  thought  of 
how  to  us  of  Saxon  lineage  those  English  rivers  are  per 
haps  without  rivals  in  the  world,  for  to  their  scenic  beauty 
is  added  the  crowning  interest  of  prolonged  and  immemo 
rial  human  association.  The  tranquil  Thames,  winding 
through  golden  meadows  and  past  the  cloisters  of  Oxford 
and  Eton,  reflecting  in  its  bosom  the  hoary  towers  of 
Windsor  and  the  sedges  of  Runnymede ;  the  pastoral  Avon, 
beside  whose  green  shores  the  boy  Shakespeare  ofttimes 
dreamed;  dear  Cowper's  languorous  river  Ouse;  the 
Duddon  and  the  Wye,  with  their  memories  of  Words 
worth;  the  mighty  Severn,  flowing  by  the  grave  of  Hal- 
lam,  and  rich  with  old  Celtic  memories; — these  and  a 
score  of  other  English  streams  are  so  freighted  with  ro 
mance  and  association  that  their  very  names  are  beautiful. 
Hundreds  of  years  must  pass  ere  our  American  rivers 
become  so  surcharged  with  the  glamour  of  a  lengendary 
past;  yet  we  have  many  streams  whose  natural  beauty 
may  easily  be  enhanced  if  one  will  bring  to  his  enjoyment 
of  them  an  imagination  open  to  the  inner  meaning  of  things 
— the  spiritual  vision  which  Wordsworth  has  awakened 
in  the  lovers  of  his  poetry.  Such  a  stream  is  the  Dela- 

[169] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


ware;  and  between  Wilmington  and  Penn's  Manor  there 
is  a  noble  variety  of  river  scenes. 

The  broad,  majestic  aspect  of  the  lower  river,  and  the 
more  pastoral  beauty  of  the  upper  stretches,  might  not 
inaptly  be  compared  to  the  special  charm  of  the  Severn 
and  of  the  Thames  respectively. 

Gazing  upon  the  shipping,  as  the  steamboat  cleaves 
the  broad  tide  of  the  river  above  Wilmington,  one  is  im 
pressed  with  the  pictures  made  by  the  varied  craft  that 
sail  or  steam  along  the  watery  highway.  Here  are  slow 
barges  with  wide  spread  of  dark  canvas  glassed  in  the  clear 
tide;  hay-boats  piled  high  with  fragrant  brown  and  green 
grass  cut  in  Delaware  marshes;  great  steamers  that  are 
soon  to  trample  the  wide  ocean's  paths,  bound  for  some 
far  port  or  tropic  isle,  sweeping  by  majestically  and  fad 
ing  over  the  soft  horizon,  leaving  nothing  but  a  trail  of 
ghostly  smoke. 

Along  the  shores  are  frequent  river  walls  that  hold 
back  the  waters  from  the  rich  underlands  where  bloom 
the  blue-starred  flags  and  tall  weeds  of  golden  flower. 
Country-houses  and  villas  are  nestled  among  the  trees 
on  the  high  Pennsylvania  shores,  and  on  the  opposite 
bank  stand  silent  woodlands  that  reach  inland  and  stretch 
away  mile  upon  mile  in  misty  beauty. 

A  glorious  river  this; — its  wide,  brimming  tides,  un 
ruffled  in  their  serenity,  unwearying  in  their  stately  on 
ward  sweep,  are  the  symbol  of  power  and  majesty  and 
endurance,  teaching  us  the  lesson  of  faithfulness  and  si 
lent  unwavering  devotion.  One  who  would  try  to  record 
in  some  small  measure  his  impressions  of  the  river's  deeper 
significance  must  exclaim,  with  good  old  Sir  John  Den- 
ham, — 

[170] 


Up  the  Delaware 


"O,  could  I  flow  like  thee,  and  make  thy  Stream 
My  great  Example,  as  it  is  my  Theme !" 

Passing  the  serried  masts,  the  tangle  of  dark  cordage 
and  the  clangor  and  unrest  of  the  Philadelphia  wharves, 
the  traveler  finds  himself  once  more  amid  green  waters 
and  green  meadow-lands.  In  our  wake  the  clean  white 
foam  tumbles  and  breaks  and  wastes  away  on  the  far 
water-line.  We  pass  the  shady  towns  that  slope  to  the 
stream-side — Riverton  and  Beverly,  Burlington  and  Bris 
tol — the  beauty  and  soft  charm  of  the  peaceful  scenery 
increasing  with  every  mile.  Here  is  hardly  a  suggestion  of 
the  commercial  aspect  of  the  river,  as  it  winds  between 
placid  fields  and  enchanted  woods. 

The  ripeness  and  glamour  of  the  coming  autumn  brood 
over  these  farms  and  orchards,  lighting  the  banks  with 
graceful  golden-rod  and  flushing  the  apples  with  tender 
crimson.  Here  and  there  white  ducks  are  feeding  among 
the  sedges,  and  on  the  breeze  comes  the  complaining  note  of 
some  lonely  water-bird.  The  level  meadows  are  severed 
from  the  river's  edge  by  corridors  of  white-stemmed  syca 
mores,  soft  willows  and  pendent  water-birches.  Gleam 
ing  beneath  the  shadows  are  cardinal-flowers,  fairest  of 
riverside  blooms,  and  pink  mallows  and  bone-set  and  blue 
gentians.  The  faint,  sweet  aroma  of  rag-weed  comes  from 
the  meadows;  white  barley-fields  stand  out  in  contrast  to 
the  encircling  green;  and,  save  for  an  occasional  farmer 
with  his  cart,  all  is  at  rest.  The  very  spirit  of  blissful 
peace  pervades  this  opulent  and  dreamy  countryside, — 
"Elysian  quiet,  without  toil  or  strife." 

The  upper  Delaware  has  notable  associations.  Here, 
at  Penn's  Manor,  or  Pennsbury  Manor  as  it  was  formerly 

[171] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


called,  once  dwelt  the  great  Founder  of  our  Common 
wealth.  The  legend  of  his  whilom  residence  is  all  that 
one  hears  of  him  in  the  neighborhood;  and  of  any  relic 
of  the  original  manor  buildings  little  remains,  save  the 
stone  foundations  of  the  brew-house.  But  the  landscape 
must  be  essentially  unaltered,  and  one  can  imagine  how 
dear  to  the  great-hearted  Quaker  must  have  been  his  hours 
of  retirement  in  this  lovely  and  sequestered  spot. 

At  Bordentown,  a  few  miles  further  up  the  river,  is 
the  stately  park  where  Joseph  Bonaparte,  King  of  Naples 
and  of  Spain,  found  an  ideal  seclusion  when  the  fortunes 
of  his  unhappy  brother  were  waning.  The  mansion  is 
now  a  seminary  for  Catholic  priests;  and,  as  one  sees  the 
young  acolytes  slowly  pacing  in  meditation  down  the  si 
lent,  leafy  avenues  and  across  the  wide  lawns,  he  thinks 
this  a  happy  sanctuary  for  those  who  are  consecrating 
themselves  for  spiritual  service  in  a  great  and  venerable, 
though  sadly  misunderstood,  church. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  charms  of  the  ride  up  the  Dela 
ware.  When  this  voyage  is  prelude,  as  was  mine,  to  a  visit 
at  one  of  the  peaceful  farmsteads  along  the  shore,  where  a 
genuine,  old-time  hospitality  prevails,  and  the  noises  of  the 
world  seem  far  away,  one's  happiness  and  satisfaction  are 
complete.  The  hours  pass  but  too  rapidly,  and  among  the 
memories  carried  away  there  stands  out  the  picture  of  the 
beauteous  river, — almost  encircled,  as  it  seems,  with  its 
curving  shores,  and  fair  as  the  Shannon  or  the  middle 
reaches  of  the  Thames;  its  glassy  waters  at  eve  dying  away 
into  the  mists  and  golden  vapors  of  sunset,  as  in  some  won 
drous  painting  of  Turner's,  touching  the  soul  with  inde 
finable  longing  and  pathos. 

[172J 


Up  the  Delaware 


"O  happy  river,  could   I  follow  thee ! 
O  yearning  heart  that  never  can  be  still ! 
O  wistful  eyes,  that  watch  the  stedfast  hill." 

The  bright,  unsullied  stream,  the  exquisite  green  and 
gold  of  the  sweet  meadow  edges,  the  glory  of  the  drifting 
cloud-land  above — could  one  ask  for  more  beautiful  as 
surance  of  the  Father's  love  for  us? 


[173] 


BELOW  THE  BRIDGE 


AUGUST  XXVII 

,ELOW  the  bridge  the  Brandywine  curves  down 
Through  open  meadows  sleeping  in  the  sun, 
And  O  so  green  and  soft ! — they  seem  indeed 
Like  upper  Thames-side  pastures,  though  more  wild 
And  more  remote  from  life.     The  willows  here 
So  green  and  silvery  seem, — I  think  Corot 
Would  have  rejoiced  to  paint  them,  filmy-fair 
And  full  of  emerald  softness  as  they  are. 
Wide  realms  of  grass  and  nodding  weeds  are  here, 
And  at  far  intervals  great  hickory  trees 
Tower  beautiful  and  stately  toward  the  sky. 
Remote  and  dim  the  busy  farm-life  seems, 
Here  where  the  flickers  fly  and  locusts  drone 
In  slumbrous  chorus,  and  the  lonely  crow 
Calls  sadly  o'er  the  corn-fields  on  the  hill. 

Below  the  bridge  and  at  the  second  curve 
A  little  island  lies,  the  very  heart 
Of  this  romantic  landscape,  wrarm  and  green, 
A  faery  island,  round  whose  tiny  shores 
The   silver  water   sweeps   in   steady   flow, 
All  bubbling,  fresh,  and  exquisitely  clear. 
A  leafy  thicket  clothes  the  little  isle, — 
Small  willow  bushes,  sprigs  of  sycamore, 
And  yellow  flowers  that  dip  into  the  stream, 
With  white  bone-set  thick  clustered ;  not  a  foot 
Of  this  small  territory  but  has  caught 

[174] 


tc 


Below  the  Bridge 


Some  wandering  seed,  to  grow  into  green  life 
And  flourish  in  the  sun  and  watery  air. 

Below  the  bridge  my  silent  slim  canoe 
Bears  me  o'er  bubbling  shallows  and  across 
The  calm  expanse  of  peaceful  waters  green, 
And  by  the  faery  isle.    The  channel  here 
So  narrow  is,  the  paddle  sweeps  the  grass 
And  yellow  blossoms  as  I   hurry  by 
Adown  the  foamy  slope  and  out  beyond 
To  the  long  reach  below  the  willow  trees, 
Where  all  is  tranquil  as  a  golden  dream. 
— O  little  river  shining  in  the  sun, 
Soft  meadows,  stately  trees  and  elfin  isle, — 
Your  charm  endures  forever,  and  the  years 
Reveal  fresh  beauty  to  my  musing  gaze! 
Where'er  I  go  I  hold  you  in  my  heart 
And  love  to  dream  of  magic  summer  hours 
Where  curves  the  Brandy  wine  below  the  bridge. 


[175] 


THE  DREAM  RIVER 


'UGUST  XXVIII.     To  the  Susquehanna  our  pil 
grimage  led  us  to-day. 

Is  there  a  river  more  enchanting  in  its  beauty 
than  this  Pennsylvania  stream  of  the  resounding  Indian 
name  ?  As  lovely  as  the  Lakes  of  Killarney  it  seems,  with 
its  rich  grassy  islets,  its  broad  expanse  of  rippling  silver 
and  its  misty  purple  hills.  As  with  Tennyson  among  the 
Irish  lakes,  so  on  these  waters  it  would  seem  easy  to  hear 

"sweet   and   far,    from    cliff    and    scar, 
The  horns  of  elf-land  faintly  blowing." 

Beside  the  Susquehanna  it  was,  that  Coleridge  would 
have  planted  his  little  Republic.  Here  Robert  Louis  Ste 
venson,  awaking  at  dawn  as  the  emigrant  train  rolled  over 
the  long  bridge,  asked  the  name  of  the  river.  "The  beauty 
of  the  name,"  he  wrote,  "seemed  to  be  part  and  parcel  of 
the  beauty  of  the  land.  As  when  Adam  with  divine  fit 
ness  named  the  creatures,  so  this  word  Susquehanna  was 
at  once  accepted  by  the  fancy.  That  was  the  name,  as  no 
other  could  be,  for  that  shining  river  and  desirable  val- 
ley." 

And  in  his  sonnets,  Lloyd  Mifflin,  who  has  long  nour 
ished  his  fancy  in  contemplating  his  native  stream,  has 
celebrated  its  solemn  grandeur  and  its  fairy  loveliness,  ex 
claiming: 

"O  river  islands  that  in  clusters  lie 
As  beautiful  as  clouds!  ye  are  my  own. 
Ye  hold  my  heart,  and  shall  until  I  die." 

[176] 


The  Dream  River 


We  were  conveyed  to  mid-stream  in  an  antique  steam 
boat,  like  Fulton's  own  "Clermont"  in  its  rude  simplicity, 
— the  helmsman  standing  high  on  the  roof  and  moving  his 
long  tiller-bar  with  easy  and  majestic  grace.  The  splendid 
reach  of  wooded  hills  fading  league  beyond  league  in  the 
luminous  distance,  the  languorous  mirage  of  cloud-land 
shot  through  and  through  with  the  shafts  of  the  sun,  the 
mystery  and  glamour  that  brooded  over  the  sleeping  isles 
and  the  silver  and  amber  waters, — all  made  a  picture  in 
effable  and  unforgetable. 

O  Lordly  Stream,  whose  sparkling  waters  sweep 
By  cloven  cliffs  and  mountains  forest-stoled, 
Or  spread  in  silent  leagues  where  mists  of  gold 

Hang  o'er  soft  islands  in  the  silver  deep; 

Fair  as  some  phantom  river  seen  in  sleep 
Art  thou,  to  whom  the  Indians  of  old 
Gave  thy  melodious  name,  in  days  when  rolled 

Primeval  thunders  round  thy  headlands  steep. 

Of  thee  the  young  and  ardent  Coleridge  dreamed 
As  loveliest  of  the  waters  of  the  west  ; 

To  Stevenson  thy  beauty  peerless  seemed ; — 
But  thine  own   Mifflin,  to  whose  loving  eye 
Thy  multitudinous  isles  "in  clusters  lie 

As  beautiful   as  clouds," — he  knows  thee  best. 


[1-Z7] 


THE  UPPER  BRAND YWINE 

In  these  high  breezy  fields  the  little  rill 
Dances  and  sings,  a  joyous  infant  stream, 

Nor  knows  what  amplitude  it  will  attain, 
Far  down  the  land,  of  majesty  and  dream. 

UGUST  XXX.  A  day  of  wandering  beside  the 
young  Brandywine,  far  up  in  the  northern  town 
ships,  a  day  of  soft  white  clouds  and  fresh  sun 
shine;  "the  land  was  all  in  a  golden,  wonderful  radiance, 
and  the  clear  streams  glittered  in  the  light,  and  the  leaves 
of  the  trees  danced  with  exultation  in  a  wind  blowing  from 
the  west."  Among  wild  meadows  and  tiny  woodland  lawns 
of  exquisite  green  turf  I  strolled,  where  the  miniature  river 
purled  and  sang  over  gray  and  golden  sands.  Here  were 
no  deep  pools  where  sulky  carp  or  sliding  turtle  might  bask, 
but  only  clear  shallows, — peopled  by  pollywogs  and  tiny 
minnows, — hurrying  down  the  pebbly  slopes  and  swirling 
past  red  willow  roots,  or  drifting  lazily  in  the  tranquil 
sunny  reaches  of  smooth,  slow  water. 

It  is  a  fine  upland  country  through  which  the  youthful 
Brandywine  curves  and  wanders,  a  country-side  open  to 
the  sun  and  the  fresh  breezes,  where  the  air  has  a  sweet, 
tonic  quality  and  the  oxen  plowing  the  brown  hillsides  look 
tranquil  and  comfortable.  To  follow  the  stream  through 
all  its  wanderings  is  to  pass  close  to  ancient  farm  walls  and 
bright  old-time  gardens,  under  little  arching  bridges  and 
beside  grassy  swamps  and  cressy  islands. 

Far  off  sounds  the  shriek  of  the  steam-thresher,  and  the 
cries  of  farmers  at  their  harrowing  float  across  the  fields; 

[178] 


The  Upper  Brandy  wine 


but  the  happy  little  faery  river  holds  on  its  peaceful  way, 
and  its  mood  is  that  of  eternal  holiday.  A  score  of  miles 
down-stream  lie  those  wide  and  stately  reaches  of  the  full- 
grown  Brandywine, — 

"Contented  river !   in  thy  dreamy  realm — 
The  cloudy  willow  and  the  plumy  elm ; 
They  call  thee  English,  thinking  thus  to  mate 
Their  musing  streams,  that  oft  with  pause  sedate 
Linger   through  misty  meadows  for  a  glance 
At  haunted  tower  or  turret  of  romance." 

But  if  our  Chester  County  stream  recalls  the  rivers  of 
England  in  its  ampler  stretches  among  the  Pocopson  mea 
dows  and  near  old  Birmingham, — in  these  high  upper 
miles  of  its  course  it  seems  like  the  fresh,  bubbling  streams 
of  Scotland,  and  the  stroller  might  almost  imagine  himself 
walking  by  Doon  or  Afton-water. 

Acres  of  golden-rod  border  the  stream  in  these  last 
days  of  summer,  and  there  is  field  after  field  of  yellow  and 
purple  and  white  blooms,  bone-set,  ironweed,  sumac,  this 
tles,  the  lacy  wild  carrot,  red  berry  bushes,  thickets  of 
reddening  dogwood,  and  many  a  little  patch  and  cluster 
of  ragweed  and  yellow  star-flowers,  belated  daisies  and 
splendid  cardinal-flowers. 

Now  and  then  the  stream  widens  out  into  a  pond  for 
ice;  here  the  water  is  steely-blue  in  the  fresh  breeze.  But  I 
love  the  little  stream  best  in  its  wild  natural  beauty,  among 
the  willow  groves  and  the  black  rocks  and  the  upland 
meadows.  There  it  has  all  the  fascination  of  lonely  and 
sequestered  Nature,  and  the  same  charm  that  pervades 
the  coombes  of  old  Somerset  where  Wordsworth  and  Cole 
ridge  roved  and  dreamed  in  the  old  days. 

[179] 


THRESHING  THE  WHEAT 

HUGUST  XXXI.     "O  happy,  beyond  human  hap 
piness,  had  they   but  the  sense   of  their  blessings, 
the   husbandmen,  for  ivhom   of  herself,  far  away 
fro?n  the  shock  of  arms,  Earth,  that  gives  all  their  due, 
pours   out  from   her  soil   plenteous  sustenance. 
Then  let  me  delight  in  the  country  and  the  streams  that 
freshen  the  valleys — let  me  love  river  and  woodland  with 
an  unambitious  love." 

Thus  wrote  Virgil  of  the  Georgics,  concerning  the 
half-idyllic  life  which  he  saw  about  him  in  the  country 
side  of  ancient  Italy.  Virgil's  praise  of  the  rural  life  can 
not,  unhappily,  be  wholly  echoed  in  our  day,  with  farm 
labor  so  hard  and  the  returns  so  moderate ;  yet  we  must 
go  to  the  country  to  find  true  old-fashioned  contentment, 
and  in  the  operations  of  agriculture  much  remains  that 
would  charm  Virgil  himself.  Indeed  some  of  our  modes 
of  tillage  have  scarcely  changed  since  the  day  of  the  great 
Augustan  poet.  I  have  seen  husbandmen  in  the  Alban 
Hills  plowing  with  just  such  primitive  wooden  implements 
as  Virgil  or  Horace  saw;  and  our  modern  plow,  save  for 
its  metal  construction,  is  essentially  the  same  thing.  So 
with  the  dairy  operations,  and  the  other  simple  processes  of 
remoter  farming  districts. 

Although  the  complex  reaper-and-binder  and  the 
steam-thresher  were  undreamed  of  in  the  elder  days,  there 
is  in  the  pulsing  rhythm  and  large  activity  of  our  threshing 
operations  something  of  a  poetry  that  has  not  gone  out 
with  the  flail  and  the  old-time  grain-fan. 

[180] 


Threshing  the  Wheat 


All  this  golden  afternoon  the  engine  has  kept  up  its 
humming  roar;  the  men  in  the  dim  and  dusty  atmos 
phere  of  the  barn,  like  the  solemn  and  mystic  figures  Mil 
let  loved  to  portray,  have  swung  the  sheaves  down  from 
the  mows  to  feed  the  thresher;  they  have  measured  the 
fast-pouring  grain,  and  piled  the  falling  straw  in  the  long 
sheds.  Now  and  then  the  children  have  ventured,  half- 
terrified,  to  look  on  at  the  strange  scene;  but  the  swallows 
and  the  pigeons  have  quite  fled  the  unwonted  invasion  of 
their  quietude.  In  the  farmer's  house  there  has  been  a 
vast  confusion  of  preparation  for  the  supper  that  is  to  feed 
near  a  score  of  half-famished  men.  But  the  period  of 
stress  is  a  brief  one, — in  a  day  all  the  wheat  and  oats  have 
been  threshed ;  and  then  the  engine,  fuming  and  panting 
like  an  uncanny  monster,  labors  heavily  down  the  road  to 
the  next  farm,  to  affright  the  brooding  pigeons  and  throw 
the  kitchen  folk  into  a  fever  of  activity. 

Threshing  the  grain  is  one  of  the  crowning  acts  of 
the  country  labors.  In  these  few  hours  the  farmer  be 
holds,  in  the  sacks  of  yellow  wheat  and  oats,  the  realiza 
tion  of  all  his  long  weeks  of  plowing  and  planting,  all  his 
patient  watching  of  his  green  growing  acres  and  of  his 
harvesting  the  heavy  sheaves. 

Charles  Tennyson-Turner, — whose  early  poetry  was 
admired  by  Coleridge,  whose  sonnets  were  dear  to  "Old 
Fitz"  and  to  the  Laureate  brother  Alfred, — delighted  to 
record  in  his  perfect  verse  the  scenes  of  the  simple  farm  life 
about  his  Lincolnshire  vicarage.  His  sonnet,  "The  Steam 
Threshing  Machine,"  with  its  affectionate  reference  to 
Virgil,  fills  a  notable  page  in  the  poetic  farmer's  calendar. 


[181] 


Brandy  wine  Day. 


"Flush  with  the  pond  the  lurid  furnace  burn'd 
At  eve,  while  smoke  and  vapour  fill'd  the  yard, 
The  gloomy  'winter  sky  was  dimly  starr'd, 
The  -fly-wheel  with  a  mellow  murmur  turn'd; 

"While,  ever  rising  on  its  mystic  stair 
In  the  dim  light,  from  secret  chambers  borne, 
The  straw  of  harvest,  sever'd  from   the  corn, 
Climb' d  and  fell  over,  in  the  murky  air. 

"I  thought  of  mind  and  matter,  will  and  law, 
And  then  of  him  who  set  his  stately  seal 
Of  Roman  words  on  all  the  forms  he  saw 
Of  old-world  husbandry.  I  could  but  feel 
With  what  a  rich  precision  he  would  draw 
The  endless  ladder  and  the  booming  wheel!" 


[182] 


AUTUMNAL  HOURS 


SEPTEMBER  I.  "The  April  rain-storms  and  the 
glided  suns  of  May  have  more  of  a  sadness  than 
the  Autumn  leaves.  There  Is  a  sympathy  in  beau 
tiful  leaves  that  fall  at  the  flush  of  their  heightening  color, 
and  we  know  they  are  tired  with  the  dust  and  fevered  with 
light.  It  is  only  a  sweet  relief  to  lie  back  on  the  bosom  of 
earth  and  cover  our  graves.  So  we  love  them  for  it." 

These  words  of  a  friend  seem  in  harmony  with  one's 
feeling  in  this  the  waning  season  of  the  year.  There  is 
a  nameless  spell  in  the  name  September  that  captivates  the 
fancy, — a  romance  and  a  glamour  that  thrill  one  and  put 
him  in  the  mood  for  reading  and  re-reading  Keats'  "Ode 
to  Autumn,"  with  its  magical  brooding  upon  all  of  the 
ripeness,  the  opulent  abundance  and  the  dreamy  charm 
of  this 

"Season  of  mists  and  mellow  fruitfulness." 

The  change  from  yesterday,  Summer,  to  to-day,  Au 
tumn,  is  but  one  of  the  calendar,  to  be  sure,  and  we  shall 
yet  have  weeks  when  we  shall  think  "warm  days  will  never 
cease";  yet  I  confess  to  a  susceptibility  to  the  power  of 
suggestiveness,  and  can  say  of  the  word  Autumn,  as  did 
Keats  of  Endymion, 

"The  very  music  of  the  name  has  gone 
Into  my  being." 

Yesterday  the  roses  shed  their  petals  in  silken  drifts  on 
the  soft  grass,  and  the  ragweed  in  the  meadows  was  of  a 

[183] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


delicious  fragrance.  To-day  the  winds  are  swaying  the 
crowns  of  the  solemn  oaks,  and  seem  to  say, — This  day  we 
come  to  our  own.  The  bloom  and  fragrance  and  lazy  for- 
getfulness  of  the  vanished  Summer  must  ere  long  become 
only  a  memory;  to-day  we  sound  our  herald  trumpets, 
summoning  the  hosts  of  the  fields  and  gardens  to  yield 
their  fruits  and  pass  into  nothingness.  The  ranks  of  wil 
lows  shall  drop  their  yellowing  leaves  one  by  one  into  the 
silent  stream,  the  serried  troops  of  corn  shall  give  up  their 
golden  store  and  turn  sere  on  a  thousand  hills  where  the 
crows  are  sadly  calling.  Marigolds  and  asters  and  late- 
lingering  roses — all  the  fair  and  graceful  companions  that 
gladden  garden  and  dooryard — shall  perish  in  the  paling 
October  suns.  The  nuts  shall  fall  in  the  yellow  glades  and 
the  sweet  birds  vanish  from  the  woodlands;  and  Solitude 
shall  again  take  possession  of  the  once-lovely  world ! 

Yea, — and  those  winds  are  calling  to  us  too ;  and  with 
mingled  regret  and  hope  soon  we  must  leave  these  tranquil 
Brandy  wine  meadows  and  this  old  red-gabled  House  below 
the  hills.  Away  we  must  turn  from  this  sylvan  peace  and 
seclusion,  where  the  invisible  forces  play  round  us  their 
harmonies,  and  the  days  are  calm  and  untroubled  as  in  a 
dream, — away  to  crowded  thoroughfares  and  the  hurry 
ing  haunts  of  men. 

What  a  benediction  is  this  summering  in  the  pure 
countryside;  what  a  healthful  tendency  our  recent  Amer 
ican  seeking  of  the  fields  from  June  to  September !  May 
every  sojourner  in  God's  free  meadows  and  forests  look 
back  with  thanksgiving  on  the  particular  region  where  his 
vacation  days  were  passed,  and  may  he  be  able  to  exclaim 
in  recollection  of  it,  as  did  warm-hearted,  kindly  old  Ed- 

[184] 


ward  Fitzgerald, — "Ah,  happy  Days !  .  .  .  in  those 
Meadows  far  from  the  World,  it  seemed,  as  Salaman's 
Island  .  .  .  the  Heart  of  that  Happy  Valley  whose 
Gossip  was  the  Mill-wheel,  and  Visitors  the  Summer  Airs 
that  momentarily  ruffled  the  sleepy  Stream." 

"He  loved  each  simple  joy  the  country  yields," — that  is 
the  epitaph  I  should  choose,  for  I  feel  certain  that  there 
can  be  no  purer  ministry  to  the  heart  and  soul  than  that 
deeper  ministry  underlying  the  simple  and  wholesome 
love  of  clouds  and  birds  and  flowers  and  streams. 

Some  lingering  strain  of  the  old  Greek  sentiment,  it 
may  be,  or  of  the  wistful  Celtic,  reveals  to  the  lover  of 
all  visible  beauty  an  inner  spirit  of 

ENCHANTMENT 
Old  forms  forgotten  of  the  world  of  men 

Still  haunt  the  common  ways  of  life  for  me; 
Lone  vales  and  dreaming  rivers  to  my  ken 

Are  fraught  with  glamour  and  with  mystery. 
I  hear  strange  harmonies  among  the  hills, 

I  drink  the  fragrance  of  forgotten  things; 

In  whispering  forests  still  the  dryad  sings, 
And  strange  emotion  all  my  being  thrills. 

Along  green  uplands  in  the  flush  of  dawn 
I  catch  a  glimpse  of  Dian's  girls  star-white, 

A  phantom  troop  that  speed  by  copse  and  lawn 
And  fade  beyond  the  wheat  field  on  the  height. 

I  hear  faint  music  in  the  shadowy  wood 

When  winds  are  stirring  in  the  chestnut  leaves, 
An  elfin  strain ; — so  plaintively  it  grieves, 

I  would  not  miss  its  pathos  if  I  could ! 
[185] 


Brandywine  Days 


And  I  have  seen  by  solitary  meads 

In  violet  days  when  April  yet  was  young, 

The  rueful   Pan  among  the  river  reeds, 
And  heard  his  wistful  elegies  outflung. 

And  through  the  hush  of  soft  September  hours, 
When  corn  was  yellow  'neath  the  harvest  moon, 
Methought  Sylvanus.  piped  an  eerie  tune 

As  low  he  lurked  amid  the  fading  flowers. 

As  some  lone  child  that  wanders  far  from  home, 
Sees  all  its  sweetness  through  his  tender  tears, 

So  phantoms  fair  of  Hellas  and  old  Rome 
Arise  for  me  from  out  the  ancient  years. 

The  paths  of  life  to  others  sad  may  seem, — 
They  cannot  but  be  glorified  for  me 
Who  find  them  fraught  with  myth  and  mystery 

And  all  enchantments  of  the  world  of  dream. 


[186] 


GOOGE'S  ECLOGUES  ONCE  MORE 

'EPTEMBER  III.  To-day  I  turn  once  more  to 
Googe's  quaint  bucolics.  In  Egloga  Tertia,  the 
herdsman  Menalcas  begs  his  comrade  Coridon 
to  tell  him  something  of  the  "Townes  estate;"  whereupon 
there  follow  the  usual  strictures  upon  city  life  as  compared 
with  the  innocence  of  life  in  the  fields.  Coridon's  closing 
verses  are  these, — 

"I,  synce  I  sawe  suche  synfull  syghts, 

dyd  never  lyke  the  Towne, 
But  thought  it  best  to  take  my  sheepe, 

and  dwell  upon  the  downe. 
Whereas    I   lyve,    a   pleasaunt   lyfe, 

and   free   from  cruell    handes, 
I  wolde  not  leave  the  pleasaunt  fyelde 

for  all  the  Townysh  Landes." 

Such  has  ever  been  the  note  of  country  simplicity,  and 
it  loses  none  of  its  attraction  in  Googe's  quaint  lines.  And 
for  a  farewell  to  honest  Barnabe,  take  his  song  in  honor  of 
"the  immortal  kynge,"  equal  to  Herrick's  Noble  Num 
bers  in  its  sincere  gratefulness : 

"Who  gyves  us  pasture  for  our  beasts 

and    blesseth    our    encrease: 
By  whom,  while  others  cark  and  toyle 

we  lyve  at  home  with  ease. 
Who  keepes  us  down,  from  climyng  hye 

wher   honour  breeds    debate, 
And  here  hath  graunted  us  to  lyve 

in  symple  Shephards  state, 

[187] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


A  lyfe  that  sure  doth  farre  exceade 

eche  other  kynd  of  lyfe : 
O  happy  state,  that  doth  content, 

How  farre  be  we  from  stryfe?" 

Almost  like  music  from  some  lost  Arcadian  world 
seem  these  pleasant,  old-time  pastorals  of  Barnabe  Googe; 
yet,  if  read  in  congenial  mood,  in  the  idyllic  setting  of 
Brandyvvine  meadows, — so  like  England's  peaceful  stream- 
side  fields, — their  quaint  philosophy  may  prove  not  wholly 
alien. 


[188] 


SPIRIT  OF  SEPTEMBER 


SEPTEMBER  V 

I 

O  SPIRIT  of  September,  I  have  seen 
Thy  wandering  footsteps  by  the  lonely  rill 
That  winds  and  murmurs  under  willows  green 
Below  yon  high-browed  hill ; 
And  I  have  followed  thee  through  orchards  olden 

And  watched  thy  wistful  face  in  silence  pass 
Where  mellow  apples  round  and  ripe  and  golden 
Lie  thickly  in  the  grass ; — 

II 

Lie  in  the  grass  where  once  in  pleasant  drowse 

Methought  I  saw  thee  in  the  dove-cote's  shade 
Weaving  a  wreath  of  asters  for  thy  brows 

In  sweet  and  fragrant  braid. 
And  by  the  woodland  edge,  'mid  moss  and  myrtle, 

When  thou  wert  dancing  o'er  the  faery  green, 
With  heaps  of  fern  and  flowers  in  thy  kirtle, 

Thee,  Spirit,  have  I  not  seen? 

Ill 

Have  I  not  seen  thee  in  the  azure  morn 
Glide  noiseless  as  a  phantom  summer  cloud 

Where  waved  the  tassels  of  the  yellow  corn 
And  vagrant  crows  called  loud ; 

[189] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


Or  watched  thee  in  the  twilight  pale  and  hazy 
With  drooping  head  roam  far  adown  the  stream 

Whose  wandering  waters  languorous  and  lazy 
Fill  our  soft  vale  with  dream  ? — 

IV 

Fill  it  with  dream  and  mystery  and  charm 
In  rosy  dawns  and  noons  and  slumbrous  eves, 

Where  smile  the  acres  of  the  ancient  farm 
With  stacks  and  golden  sheaves, 

With  rustic  wealth  of  timothy  and  clover, 

And  meadows  where  the  soft-eyed  heifers  graze, 

And  fields  of  thick-sown  millet  toppling  over, 
And  slopes  of  tasseled  maize; — 

V 

Of  tasselled  maize  and  fields  where  thistle-seeds 

Float  on  light  winds  above  the  luscious  sod, 
Where  pungent  mint  and  ragweed  fill  the  meads, 

And  wild-heart  goldenrod ; 
And  gardens  lovelier  for  thy  passing  there, — 

So  stately  seem  the  silken  hollyhocks, 
So  sumptuous  the  lingering  roses  fair, 
So  deeply  bright  the  phlox ; — 

VI 

So  bright  the  phlox  and  every  stately  flower 
The  season  brings; — but,  ah,  to  think  how  soon 

Thou'lt  fade  away  as  hour  by  golden  hour 
Rolls  on  toward  Autumn's  noon! 

[190] 


Spirit  of  September 


Too  soon  thou'lt  fade,  O  Spirit  of  September, 

As  fade  the  walnut's  and  the  willow's  leaves ; 
But  thy  deep  charm,  O  how  I  shall  remember 
When  Winter  sighs  and  grieves! 


[191] 


A  DISCIPLE  OF  KEATS 


(EPTEMBER  VI.  Yesterday,  when  the  autumn 
wind  grieved  in  the  oak  grove,  and  the  yellow 
willow  leaves  fell  on  the  Brandywine's  dark 
waters,  I  read  a  volume  of  poetry  that  took  me  back 
very  happily  to  those  eternal  favorites,  Spenser  and  Keats, 
— poetry  stately  and  dreamful  like  that  of  the  "Faerie 
Queene,"  wistful  and  beautiful  like  that  of  the  "Ode  to 
Autumn."  It  was  the  newly  collected  work  of  Madison 
Cawein,  the  best  of  his  voluminous  output,  gathered  into 
a  thick  little  book,  and  championed  by  Edmund  Gosse  in 
an  essay  with  all  his  charm  of  style  and  delicacy  of  in 
sight. 

Wholly   in   keeping  with   the   pensive   autumnal    day 
seemed  this  sonnet, — 


"So  Love  is   dead,  the  Love  we  knew  of  old! 

And    in    the   sorrow    of   our    hearts'    hushed    halls 
A  lute  lies  broken  and  a  flower  falls ; 
Love's  house  is  empty  and  his  hearth  is  cold. 
Lone   in   dim   places,   where  sweet  vows  were  told, 
In  walks  grown  desolate,  by  ruined  walls, 

Beauty  decays;  and  on  their  pedestals 
Dreams  crumble,    and  the   immortal   gods   are  mould. 
Music  is  slain  or  sleeps;  one  voice  alone, 

One  voice  awakes,  and  like  a  wandering  ghost 

Haunts  all  the  echoing  chambers  of  the  Past — 
The   voice  of   Memory,  that  stills  to  stone 

The  soul  that  hears;   the  mind  that,  utterly   lost, 
Before   its  beautiful   presence  stands   aghast." 

[192] 


A  Disciple  of  Keats 


It  is  a  fine  pleasure  to  study,  in  our  more  artistic 
writers  of  verse,  their  relation  to  the  masters  of  song,  to 
find  in  the  mystery  and  haunting  quality  of  Bliss  Carman 
some  remembrance  of  Coleridge  and  Shelley,  to  hear  the 
Wordsworth ian  note  in  the  late  Philip  Henry  Savage's 
work,  to  feel  the  old  Virgilian  charm  in  the  Pennsyl 
vania  sonnets  of  Lloyd  Mifflin,  the  antique  druid  solem 
nity  and  Celtic  spirituality  in  the  lyrics  of  the  late  Lionel 
Johnson.  And  in  the  case  of  Madison  Cawein,  it  is  a  de 
light  to  find  a  continued  allegiance  to  Keats,  and  through 
Keats  to  Spenser.  My  friend  Dr.  Glenn  L.  Swiggett, 
who  is  fond  of  tracing  literary  origins,  has  detailed  a  con 
versation  with  Mr.  Cawein,  when  the  poet  told  of  his 
boyhood  rapture  over  a  copy  of  Hales'  "Longer  English 
Poems,"  and  of  his  ''eternal  obligation,  for  his  acquired 
taste,  to  Spenser,  Milton,  and  Tennyson,"  as  revealed  to 
him  in  that  book.  We  may  take  it,  therefore,  that  the 
splendid  harmony  and  soft  glow  of  the  Prothalamion 
touched  the  imagination  of  the  ardent  youth  and  made 
him  a  poet,  as  surely  as  the  reading  of  Ghristabel  woke 
Stephen  Phillips  to  his  inheritance  from  the  Muses. 

Madison  Cawein,  and  a  new  poet,  J.  E.  Spingarn,  of 
Columbia  University,  revive  the  Spenserian  tradition  in 
a  notable  way,  very  refreshing  in  these  modern  days.  And 
to  his  affluent  Spenserian  harmony,  Cawein  unites  the 
brooding  Celtic  attitude  of  Keats.  Old  Kentucky  be 
comes  under  his  eyes  the  home  of  forgotten  deities  of 
forest  and  river-shore;  twilight  sheaves  and  glimmering 
trees  appear  like  mythical  forms,  and  antique  Hellas  re 
awakens  in  our  New  World  meadows.  No  other  Ameri 
can  poet  has  ventured  on  so  frank  a  pantheism  as  has 

[193] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


Cawein;  and  presenting  it  in  simple  and  lucid  fashion,  it 
seems  with  him  an  attitude  wholly  natural. 

"Like   some  white  witch,   some   ghostly  ministrant, 
Some    spectre   of   some   perished    flower   of   phlox;" 

thus  he  conceives  of  the  twilight  moth.  Nevermore,  he 
says  to  a  fallen  beech, — 

"Shall  the  storm,  with  boisterous  hoof-beats,  under 
Thy  dark  roof  dance,  Faun-like,  to  the  humming 
Of  the  Pan-pipes  of  the   rain  and  thunder." 

He  asks  if  bird-songs  be  perchance  spirit  voices, — 

"Is  it  a   Naiad  singing  in   the   dusk,     .... 
Or    just    a    wild-bird    voluble    with    thanks?" 

Is  the  forest's  warm  fragrance  the  sighing  of 

"A  sylvan  Spirit,  whose   sweet  mouth   did  breathe 
Her  viewless  presence  near  us,   unafraid?" 

The  sumptuous  poem  "Myth  and  Romance"  is  filled  with 
this  blithe  neo-Hellenism;  in  his  reverie  the  poet  beholds 
a  train  of  fabled  images: 

"Now  'tis   a   Satyr  piping  serenades 

On  a  slim  reed.     Now  Pan   and  Faun  advance 
Beneath   green-hollowed   roofs  of  forest   glades, 
Their  feet  gone  mad  with  music." 

Thus  does  that  long-dead  time  live  again  for  this  dreamer 
of  happy  imagination. 

"All  around  me,  upon  field  and  hill, 
Enchantment   lies   as  of  mysterious   flutes." 

In  all  his  harking  back  to  Greece,  Madison  Cawein  re 
sembles  Keats;  as  he  does,  too,  in  his  easy  familiarity  with 

[194] 


A  Disciple  of  Keats 


Oberon  and  his  faery  company.  The  genial  sympathy  of 
William  Dean  Howells  has  frequently  enlisted  itself  in 
support  of  our  poet's  Hellenism, — nowhere  more  felici 
tously,  I  think,  than  where  he  avows  that  these  verse- 
pictures  of  Mr.  Cawein's  "incarnate  the  soul  of  the  warm, 
rich,  lazy  land.  ...  In  all  that  is  sylvan,  all  that 
is  pastoral,  his  sensuous  rhyme  takes  my  homesick  fancy 
with  a  tenderness  which  I  hope  does  not  disable  my  judg 
ment.  .  .  .  This  poet  wins  his  airiest,  his  most  sub 
stantial,  success  when  he  finds  the  fabled  past  amidst  the 
blue-grass  meadows  and  wood-pastures  of  the  Ohio  Val 
ley." 

The  warmest  of  his  critics  admit  that  Mr.  Cawein 
has  been,  perhaps,  overfluent;  but  I  would  not  dwell  on 
this,  for  the  body  of  verse  of  classic  and  glowing  beauty 
that  he  has  given  us  entitles  him  to  our  full  gratitude. 
And  I  count  it  no  derogation  to  say  that  he  is  at  his 
best  when,  consciously  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  Keats, 
he  portrays  his  homeland  scenes  in  pulsing  and  impas 
sioned  stanzas,  with  vision  lucid  and  of  a  Greek  intensity. 

I  should  like  to  set  down  many  a  line  of  pure  loveli 
ness  which  I  have  underscored  in  "Kentucky  Poems,"  but 
must  content  myself  with  this  little  fragment  of  our  poet's 
creed, — 

"There  is  a  poetry  that  speaks 

Through  common   things:  the  grasshopper, 
That  in  the  hot  weeds  creaks  and  creaks, 

Says  all  of  summer  to  my  ear; 

And    in   the   cricket's   cry   I   hear 
The   fireside  speak,   and  feel   the  frost 

Work  mysteries  of  silver  near 
On  country  casements." 

[195] 


WALTER  PATER  AGAIN 


Upon  his  noble  books  I've  loved  to  muse 
Since  those  white  days  in  Oxford  long  ago 

I  heard  his  gracious  words  and  saw  him  wrapt 
In  pensive  reverie  pacing  to  and  fro. 

'EPTEMBER  VII.  "Carpe  diem!"— the  old  Ro 
man  poet's  injunction  was  faithfully  interpreted 
by  Oxford's  Idealist.  Let  us  make  each  of  our 
days  happy  and  serviceable.  Why  all  this  beauty  in  the 
humanity  and  nature  round  about  us,  save  for  daily  joy 
and  thanksgiving? 

As  surely  as  Wordsworth  taught  us  to  see  "in  com 
mon  things  that  round  us  lie"  the  hand  of  the  very  God, 
and  revealed,  to  us  who  love  Him, 

"The    earth    and    every    common    sight 
Apparelled  in  celestial  light, 
The  glory  and  the  freshness  of  a  dream," 

so  surely  does  Walter  Pater,  in  his  lucid  and  tranquil 
prose-discourse  waken  us  to  fresh  recognition  of  the 
vital  beauty  of  daily  life.  We  owe  it  to  our  best  selves, 
this  wise  teacher  held,  to  make  "our  own  each  highest 
thrill  of  joy  that  the  moment  offers  us — be  it  some  touch 
of  color  on  the  sea  or  the  mountains,  the  early  dew  in  the 
crimson  shadows  of  a  rose." 

From  the  stimulating  conversation  of  a  thoughtful 
friend,  from  a  lonely  ramble  beside  some  drowsy  stream 
among  October's  drifting  gold,  from  an  evening  of  glo- 

[196] 


IFalter  Pater  Again 


rious  music,  from  voyaging  through  strange  seas  of  thought 
in  the  pages  of  some  beloved  and  impassioned  author — 
Plato,  or  Virgil,  or  "our  sage  and  serious  Poet  Spenser" 
— from  such  precious  experiences,  Walter  Pater  would 
have  said,  let  us  glean  such  inspiration  as  may  seem  "by 
a  lifted  horizon  to  set  the  spirit  free  for  a  moment;"  for 
to  Pater  it  was  clear  that  "the  service  of  philosophy,  and 
of  religion  and  culture  as  well,  to  the  human  spirit,  is  to 
startle  it  into  a  sharp  and  eager  observation."  , 

Memory  meant  much  to  Pater,  as  much  as  it  meant 
to  Charles  Lamb  himself;  he  would  have  us  build 
for  ourselves  "nests  of  pleasant  thoughts,"  through  the 
wise  cherishing  of  every  noble  sight  or  fine  experience  or 
memorable  conversation  or  happy  hour  among  books  and 
music.  Walter  Pater's  golden  book,  "Marius  the  Epi 
curean,"  tells  of  "  a  young  Roman  feeling  his  way  in  early 
life  through  the  religions,  the  philosophies,,  the  arts  of  the 
time  of  Marcus  Aurelius."  It  portrays  the  young  pa 
trician  Marius  as  a  favored  youth,  serious  and  sweet  and 
high-minded,  seeking  diligently  and  religiously  after  per 
fection  of  life,  perfection  of  faith,  perfection  of  friendship. 
To  this  youth  of  healthy,  pure  and  vigorous  character 
comes  a  great  desire  for  richness  and  fullness  of  life. 
Marius  moves  across  that  strange  old  lost  Roman  world, 
a  gracious  and  lovable  figure,  gathering  to  his  heart  what 
ever  of  noble  and  uplifting  crosses  his  pathway,  and  with 
fine  delicacy  ignoring  the  evil  and  the  gross.  There  is 
the  pathos  of  immortal  youth  about  Marius;  it  lingers 
wTith  the  reader  like  some  fine  fragrance,  as  of  old  laven- 
dered  linen,  or  of  dead  rose-leaves  among  the  faded  silks 
of  our  grandmothers  in  country  attics;  for  with  sure  lit- 

[197] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


erary  art  Pater  makes  his  hero  die  young,  thus  giving  to 
his  brief  beautiful  days  the  pathos  of  unfulfilled  renown. 
Yes,  this  bright  young  life  is  cut  down  while  yet  the  fair 
city  of  God,  toward  which  the  eager  young  eyes  are  di 
rected  so  ardently,  lies  dreamily  beyond  the  mists  of  the 
fast-fading  pagan  world.  Confident  that  Love  must  tri 
umph,  Marius  passes  to  where  "beyond  these  voices  there 
is  peace." 

This  masterpiece  of  the  Oxford  teacher  is  a  work  of 
lasting  beauty;  the  clear,  bright  style,  so  firm  and  chast 
ened,  so  musical  and  gracious,  will  carry  it  down  the  years, 
and  its  pure  message  will  touch  hearts  yet  unborn.  Are 
not  its  precepts  in  harmony  with  the  best  that  Socrates  or 
Plato  taught,  or  that  found  enduring  expression  from 
those  sinless  lips  "beneath  the  Syrian  blue"? — 

"Be  temperate  in  thy  religious  motions,  in  love  .  .  . 
in  all  things,  and  of  a  peaceful  heart  with  thy  fellows." 

"Meditate  upon  children  at  play  in  the  morning,  the 
trees  in  early  spring." 

Choose  "whatever  form  of  human  life  may  be  heroic, 
impassioned,  ideal." 

Walter  Pater's  doctrines  cannot  be  lightly  spoken  of 
or  overlooked.  Of  immense  import  do  they  become  when 
we  recognize  that  they  convey  anew  those  divine  words: 
"I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life  and  that  they  might 
have  it  more  abundantly." 

This  book,  "Marius  the  Epicurean,"  assuredly  fulfills 
Milton's  definition  of  a  good  book — "the  precious  life- 
blood  of  a  master-spirit  embalmed  and  treasured  up  on 
purpose  to  a  life  beyond  life." 

Eighteen  years  have  passed  since  I  heard  the  living 

[198] 


U^alter  Pater  Again 


voice  of  Walter  Pater;  yet  as  I  read  in  the  white  pages  of 
"Marius,"  or  the  other  volumes,  blending  with  the  mur 
muring  song  of  the  sylvan  Brandywine  I  hear  that  voice 
again,  as  on  that  far-off  summer  evening  in  old-world 
Oxford,  "that  sweet  city  with  her  dreaming  spires,"  "the 
city  where  the  Muses  all  have  sung."  I  hear  the  rapt 
tones,  the  harmonious  periods  of  his  gentle  eloquence, 
as  he  lectures  on  Raphael,  celebrating,  as  always,  Youth — 
this  time  a  real  youth,  but  none  the  less  a  brother  in  spirit 
to  Marius  the  dream-youth  of  old  Rome.  That  evening  is 
one  of  the  memories  that  cannot  die! 

What  his  teachings  meant  to  his  chosen  students — 
and  no  one  became  his  student  without  also  becoming  his 
friend — may  be  seen  in  the  elegy  for  Walter  Pater,  writ 
ten  by  his  devoted  disciple,  the  late  Lionel  Johnson: 

"Gracious  God  rest  him,  he  who  toiled  so  well 
Secrets  of  grace  to  tell 
Graciously         ...... 

Half  of  a  passionately  pensive  soul 

He  showed  us,  not  the  whole ; 

Who  loved  him  best,  they  best,  they  only,  knew 

The  deeps,  they  might  not  view     .... 

Calm  Oxford  autumns  and  preluding  springs ! 

To  me  your  memory  brings 

Delight  upon   delight,  but  chiefest  one ; 

The  thought  of  Oxford's  son, 

Who  gave  me  of  his  welcome  and  his  praise, 

When  white  were  still  my  days; 

Scholarship's  constant  saint,  he  kept  her  light 
In  him  divinely  white;    .... 
Oh,  sweet  grave  smiling  of  that  wisdom,  brought 
From  arduous  ways  of  thought; 

[199] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


Oh,  golden  patience  of  that  travailing  soul, 

So  hungered  for  the  goal ! 

Ended,  his  services;  yet,   albeit,  farewell 

Tolls  the  faint  vesper  bell, 

Patient  beneath  his  Oxford  trees  and  towers 

He  still  is  gently  ours: 

Hierarch  of  the  spirit,  pure  and  strong, 

Worthy   Uranian   song. — 

Gracious  God  keep  him:  and  God  grant  to  me 

By  miracle  to  see 

That  unforgetably  most  gracious  friend, 

In  the  never-ending  end." 


[200] 


THE  INDIAN'S  GRAVE 


[EPTEMBER  XL    This  day  a  gathering  of  honor 
able   historians   comes   to   our  hills   to   dedicate   a 
massive   stone   over   the    Indian's   grave,    whereon 
is  inscribed  this  epitaph  : 


HERE  RESTS 

INDIAN  HANNAH 

THE  LAST  OF  THE  LENNI  LENAPE 

INDIANS  IN  CHESTER  COUNTY 

WHO  DIED  IN  1802 


Last  of  her  race,  she  sleeps  in  this  lone  grave, — 
Lowly  and  lone,  and  dim  and  half-forgot 
In  these  last  hundred  summers  since  she  died ; 
Last  of  her  race, — laid  here  so  long  ago 
And  gently  mourned  by  folk  of  alien  stock, 
But  not  of  alien  hearts,  kind  Quaker  folk 
Who  cherished  the  lone  Indian,  cared  for  her, 
And  made  her  loneliness  less  sorrowful, 
Till  life  went  out. 

And  so  went  out  a  race 

That  through  uncounted  cycles  had  their  home 
Besides  Wawassan's  wild  and  wandering  stream,- 
Tracking  the  bear  and  elk  among  these  hills 
And  taking  fish  in  those  rude  stone-built  dams 
[201] 


Brandywine  Days 


That  still  remain  in  old  Wawassan's  stream, 

And  celebrating  round  their  flickering  fires 

Strange  pagan  rite  and  solemn  dance  of  war, — 

So  long  and  long  ago ! — ere  yet  our  sires 

Forced  Magna  Carta  on  reluctant  John, 

Or  yielded  unto  Alfred's  kindly  law, 

Yea,  even  ere  they  stormed  the  eastern  shores 

Of  Britain,  rovers  on  the  wild  North  Sea, — 

So  long  ago  this  old  Algonquin  folk 

Hunted  and  warred  and  worshipped  'mid  the  woods 

That  hid  these  hills  in  endless  greenery. 

What  tribal  memories  survived  in  her, 

That  last  lone  Indian  woman, — what  remote 

And  pale  tradition  from  the  ancient  years, 

Of  sylvan  loves  and  wars,  heroic  deeds 

Of  deathless  chieftains,  wisdom  of  the  gods? 

I  think  some  primal  feeling  surely  stirred 

At  times  that  lonely  heart  brooding  the  Past, 

When  in  gray  autumn  twilights  by  her  fire 

She  mused  and  mourned,  recalling  how  in  youth 

She  heard  the  old  men  grieve,  old  women  weep 

O'er  territory  wrested  from  their  tribe 

By  the  intruding  English.     Hopelessly 

They  grieved  and  wept; — she  could  not  understand 

The  great  All-Father's  will,  she  only  knew 

How  numbers  lessened,  how  the  forests  fell 

And  spoiled  the  hunting,  how  the  fishing  failed, 

And  how  as  farmland  after  farmland  spread 

Along  Wawassan's  shores,  her  people  waned 

In   ancient  power  and  comfort. 

[202] 


"Leafy  summer  solitudes1' 


The  Indian 's  Grave 


— 'Tis  but  little 

We  do,  in  honoring  her  name  to-day, 
Toward  offering  penance  for  the  pitiless  force 
Exerted  by  our  sires  against  her  race. 
To-day,  among  these  grand  old  Indian  hills, 
And  by  this  wild  and  wandering  Indian  stream, 
In  reverence  and  sorrow  let  us  rear 
This  strong  rude  boulder  o'er  the  Indian's  grave,- 
We,  of  the  alien  English,  paying  thus 
Some  tribute  small  of  honor  and  remorse 
Unto  the  noble  natives  of  these  hills 
By  Indian  Wawassan's  mourning  stream. 


[203] 


MORE  OF  VAUGHAN'S  VERSES 

'EPTEMBER  XII.  Taking  up  Henry  Vaughan's 
quaint  book  this  morning  beside  the  cool  Bran- 
dywine,  I  find  his  spirit  in  harmony  with  the  pas 
toral  quietude  of  these  old  farm  landscapes.  The  seclusion 
of  country  life  was  blissful  for  Vaughan;  and,  moreover, 
he  was  a  brother  of  the  angle. 

"Rural  shades  are  the  sweet  sense 
Of  piety  and  innocence; 
If  Eden  be  on  earth  at  all, 
'Tis  that  which  we  the  Country  call." 

His  very  enumerations,  like  those  of  his  poet-brother 
Robert  Herrick,  smack  of  rural  felicities, — 

"Sweet,  downie  thoughts,  soft  Lily-shades,  Calm  streams, 

Joyes  full  and  true, 
Fresh,   spicie   mornings,   and  eternal   beams." 

Vaughan's  dedications  always  yield  some  quaint  fancy, 
some  naive  charm;  that  of  his  first  volume  tastes  of  the 
new-fledged  author  fresh  from  the  delicate  nurture  of  col 
lege  days, — 

"To  all  Ingenious  Lovers  of  Poesy:  To  you  alone,  whose 
more  refined  spirits  out-wing  these  dull  times,  and  soar  above  the 
drudgery  of  dirty  intelligence,  have  I  made  sacred  these  fancies." 

In  the  riper  fruits  of  his  pen  Vaughan  expresses  the 
hope  that  his  lighter  pieces  may  be  found 

"interlined  with  many  virtuous,  and  some  pious  mixture 

some   prelibation   of  those   heavenly   refreshments  which   descend 

but  seldom." 

[204] 


More  of  Vaughan  s  Verses 

We  moderns  often  treat  our  books  too  lightly,  but  the 
stately  folios  of  Henry  Vaughan's  day  were  cherished  and 
beloved.  "Bright  books,"  he  calls  them  affectionately, 

"The  track  of  fled  souls,  and  their  milkie  way." 

The  English  Church,  so  venerable,  so  comforting,  held 
all  that  was  dearest  in  religion  for  Henry  Vaughan;  no 
other  faith  could  so  warm  his  heart  with  the  gracious  rit 
ual  and  mystic  symbolism  craved  by  men  of  his  patrician 
tastes.  In  his  verse  we  seem  to  hear  low-breathed  organ 
music  and  the  fading  cadences  of  magnificent  anthems. 
His  very  titles  are  redolent  of  the  Book  of  Common  Pray 
er.  Hence  it  is  that  Vaughan's  most  devoted  readers  have 
been  those  who  love  the  beautiful  sanctities  and  traditions 
of  the  Anglican  Church. — Beside  the  river  Usk  the  poet 
sleeps,  the  river  that  had  erst  composed  his  thoughts  "to 
more  than  infant  softness." 

Miss  Louise  Imogen  Guiney,  the  poet-critic,  has  writ 
ten  an  essay  full  of  exquisite  appreciation  of  the  Welsh 
singer;  furthermore,  she  performed  the  pious  service,  not 
many  years  ago,  of  restoring  his  long-neglected  and  for 
gotten  grave  in  the  lonely  churchyard  of  Llansantffread 
among  his  grand  native  hills. 

"The  earlier  and  purer  fires  of  Christianity"  glow  in 
Vaughan's  poetry; — I  would  not  ask  for  nobler  poetry 
for  reading  on  a  Sabbath  morning  of  summer  amid  the 
country's  peace  and  holy  quietude  beside  our  little  river. 


[205] 


AT  CEDARCROFT 

HOME  OF  BAYARD  TAYLOR 


(ToJ.M.) 
SEPTEMBER  XIII 

a  HAUNT  of  old  repose  and  peacefulness 
Is  this  red  mansion  with  its  dreamy  lawns, 
Its  shadowy  evergreens  and  druid  oaks, 
Its  orchards  and  its  deep  and  silent  woods. 
Would  you  were  here  this  soft  September  day 
To  share  with  me  in  this  enchanted  scene, — 
You  to  whom  Taylor's  memory  is  dear, — 
To  sit  beneath  these  bowering  apple  trees 
Whose  ruddy  fruit  shines  thickly  in  the  grass, 
And  watch  the  phantom  islands  of  the  air 
Drift  high  above;  to  hear  the  sleepy  songs 
Of  locusts  in  the  leafy  solitudes 
And  lonely  birds  along  the  woodland  edge ; 
And  see  the  butterflies  in  airy  throng 
Hover,  and  veer,  and  flit  on  fairy  wings 
Among  the  phlox  and  musky  marigolds. 

Peace  reigneth  here,  and  faint  and  far  away 
Seems  all  the  noisy  clamor  of  the  world. 
Peace  reigneth  here  among  these  sunny  glades 
And  under  these  dear  ancient  evergreens, 
Cedar  and  fir  and  yew  and  spicy  box ; — 
Peace,  drowsed  with  early  autumn  fragrances 
Of  mellowing  pears  and  plums  and  ripening  corn 

[206] 


At  Cedarcroft 


And  breath  of  wild  grapes  in  the  woodland  bowers; — 

Peace,  doubly  sweet  because  once  dear  to  him 

Who  built  this  homestead  in  the  bygone  years, 

Cherished  these  lawns  and  noble  forest  trees 

And  reared  yon  tower,  from  whose  commanding  height 

Looking  across  the  land  his  boyhood  loved, — 

These  blissful  landscapes  of  old  Chester  County, — 

He  gazed  o'er  pastoral  slopes  and  sylvan  dells, 

O'er  singing  rills,  o'er  billowy  fields  of  wheat 

And  balmy  orchards,  to  the  misty  edge 

Of  these  green  townships  in  the  Kennett  hills. 

Would  you  were  here  with  me,  old  friend,  to  read 
Our  Poet's  page  beneath  his  own  great  trees 
And  in  his  own  library's  deep  repose! 
All  day  I've  dwelt  with  joy  on  his  rich  verse, 
From  those  clear  early  songs  whose  music  drew 
Sweetness  from  Shelley's  wondrous  harmonies, 
To  those  full  organ-tones  of  his  ripe  years, 
August  and  stately,  such  as  men  might  chant 
On  victor  fields  or  in  cathedral  aisles. 
And  over  all  his  flood  of  ardent  song 
And  high-wrought  sentiment  and  starry  truth 
There  breathes  the  peace  of  these  first  autmn  days, 
Touching  with  golden  mists  his  beauteous  lines, 
And  these  Arcadian  bowers  of  Cedarcroft 
With  tenderest  pathos  and  with  pensive  charm. 


[207] 


OLD  AND  NEW  PASTORAL  POETS 

'EPTEMBER  XIV.  The  pastoral  tradition  has 
never  faded  from  our  English  verse;  Spenser 
gave  it  enduring  foundation,  and  Colin  Clout's 
rustic  pipe  has  never  been  silent  for  long.  The  Elizabethan 
song-books  are  adorned  with  shepherd  songs  from  for 
gotten  hands ;  and  most  buoyant,  fresh  and  altogether 
charming  are  those  pastoral  ditties, — as  in  Phyllida's  Love- 
Call:— 

"PHYLLIDA:  Phyllida,  thy  true  love,  calleth  thee, 

Arise  then,  arise  then, 
Arise  and  keep  thy  flock  with  me ! 

CORYDON:  Phyllida,  my  true  love,  is  it  she? 

I  come  then,   I  come  then, 
I  come  and  keep  my  flock  with  thee. 

PHYLLIDA  :  Here  are  cherries  ripe  for  my  Corydon ; 

Eat  them  for  my  sake. 
CORYDON:  Here's  my  oaten  pipe,  my  lovely  one, 

Sport  for  thee  to  make." 

George  Peele  wrote  pastoral  lyrics  with  true  felicity. 
What  an  Arcadian  simplicity  in  the  idyllic  dialogue  of 
QEnone  and  Paris! — 

"GENOME:  Fair  and  fair,  and  twice  so  fair, 

As  fair  as  any  may  be; 
The  fairest  shepherd  on  our  green, 
A  love  for  any  lady. 

[208] 


Old  and  New  Pastoral  Poets 

PARIS:  Fair  and   fair  and  twice  so  fair, 

As  fair  as  any  may  be ; 
Thy  love   is   fair  for   thee   alone, 
And  for  no  other  lady. 

GENONE:  My  love  is  fair,  my  love  is  gay^ 

As  fresh  as  bin  the  flowers  in  May, 
And  of  my  love  my  roundelay, 

My  merry,  merry,  merry  roundelay." 

The  country-songs  of  Robert  Greene  have  all  the  in 
nocence  of  the  old  age,  and  a  certain  quality  of  tenderness 
very  characteristic  of  the  creator  of  sweet  Margaret  of 
Fressingfield. 

Browne's  Britannia's  Pastorals  are  usually  read,  I  be 
lieve,  at  first  for  Keats'  sake, — the  later  poet  found  them 
enchanting, — and  then  for  their  own  sake  as  portraying 
shepherd  life  in  old  Devonshire  in  delightful  old-fashioned 
verse.  The  eclogues  and  songs  of  these  Pastorals  tell,  in 
quaint,  heartfelt  language,  of  country  joys,  of  merry 
shepherds  piping  on  green  hillocks,  of  English  nightingales 
and  robins  and  wrens,  of 

"flow'ry   valleys 
Where  Zephyr  with  the  cowslip  hourly  dallies," 

of  well-piled  hay-ricks,  of  barns  where  ring  the  threshing 
flails,  of  orchards  laden  with  pears  and  plums  and  apricots, 
of  many 

"a  jocund  crew  of  youthful  swains 
Wooing   their   sweetings  with  delicious   strains." 

Browne  leads  his  readers  through  a  pastoral  land  of  un 
sullied  old-world  charm  and  delight;  and  he  easily  per 
suades  us,  during  this  poetic  journey,  that 

[209] 


Brandy  wine  Day. 


"Free   there's   none    from    all    this    wordly   strife 
Except   the   shepherd's   heaven-bless'd   life." 

Browne's  brother-poet  of  Devon, — Robert  Herrick, — is, 
in  pastoral  verse,  as  elsewhere,  of  a  unique  gusto  and 
quaint  felicity.  His  Beucolick,  or  Discourse  of  Neatherds 
lacks  simplicity  perhaps,  but  its  art  is  of  the  true  Her 
rick  flavor,  echoing  as  it  does 

"The   soft,   the   sweet,  the   mellow   note 

That  gently  purles  from  cithers  Oat — " 
and 

"A  suger'd  note  and  sound  as  sweet 
As  Kine  when  they  at  milking  meet." 

Among  living  poets  of  the  pastoral  tradition  Lloyd 
Mifflin  is  eminent.  We  have  seen  his  command  of  idyllic 
color  and  charm  in  his  sonnets;  and  especially  in  a  group 
of  fifty  sonnets,  In  Quiet  Fields,  Mr.  MifHin,  with  rural 
Pennsylvania  for  his  background,  writes  in  the  mood  of 
Theocritus.  Here  is  part  of  his  vision  of  antique  shepherd 
life: 

"faint  is  heard  and  slow 

The  pipe  of  some  brown  Faun  beneath  the  pine. 
There  upland  streams,  dissolving,  reach  the  vales; 

And  there  are  groves  of  ilex  and  of  yew, 
Unending  valleys  and  Illyrian  dales, 

And  gods  reclining  where  the  soft  winds  woo; 
And  azure  seas  there  are,  and  sunset  sails, 

And  shepherds  piping  on  the  capes  of  blue." 

And  for  a  closing  extract,  let  me  quote  from  his  pic 
ture  of  "Autumn,  that  drowsy  Faun,"  who 

[210] 


Old  and  New  Pastoral  Poets 

"Dozes  anear  the  cider-press  for  days, 

Sipping  the  oozed  juice  of  pomace  lees; 
And,  leaning  on  the  cope  of  orchard  walls, 
Watches  the  golden  apple  till  it  falls. 

Who  spreads  the  dim  and  amethystine  haze 

In  all   the  dells,   and  for  the  full-fed  bees 
Bursts  the  late  pear,  and  makes  its  mell  increase.   .    . 

Who  wafts  the  thistle-down  to  far-off  seas, 
And  spins  the  spider  threads  across  the  fields 

Of  evening,  golden   in  the   setting  sun." 

Is  this  not  in   the  very  spirit  of  Theocritus  and  of 
Keats? 


[211] 


WITH  LLOYD  MIFFLIN'S  SONNETS 

SEPTEMBER  XV 

eOVING  the  shores  of  my  ancestral  stream 
Beneath  old  solitary  willow  trees, 
Or  musing  in  still  gardens  where  the  bees 
Drone  all  day  long,  and  yellow  roses  gleam, 
And  all  the  sleepy  summer  world  doth  seem 
In  golden  revery  wrapt;  or  at  large  ease 
Wandering  among  the  billowy  clover  seas, — 
I  read  his  Sonnets,  lost  in  pensive  dream. 

O  then  a  spirit-music  lulls  the  ear 

And  sets  the  drowsy  afternoon  a-thrill; 

And  o'er  that  dear  home-stream  and  ancient  farm, 
Across  the  languorous  garden-blooms,   I  hear, — 

Blown  as  from  flutes  on  some  green  Mantuan  hill, — 
Virgilian  pathos  and  Virgilian  charm ! 


[212] 


THE  OLD-FASHIONED  GARDEN 

"Half -drowned  in  sleepy  peace  it  lay, 
As  satiate  with  the  boundless  play 
Of  sunshine  in  its  green  array." 

EPTEMBER  XVI.  "Ghost-like  I  paced  round 
the  haunts  of  my  childhood."  Every  reader  of 
Charles  Lamb  remembers  how  Elia  loved  in  sum 
mer  days  to  go  with  his  sister  for  a  visit  to  the  land  of  an 
cestral  associations,  "hearty,  homely,  loving  Hertford 
shire."  A  like  happiness  was  ours  in  journeying  yesterday 
to  that  township  in  the  sister  shire  of  Lancaster,  of  which 
I  have  spoken  in  my  "Hour-Glass"  heretofore.  Over  the 
long  hills  we  jogged,  through  the  townships  with  their 
English  and  Irish  names — Marlborough  and  Londonderry, 
Nottingham  and  Drumore, — past  old  red  brick  farm 
houses  \vith  purple  phlox  in  every  dooryard,  and  between 
fields  of  wild  carrot  and  odorous  ragweed,  coming  at  last 
to  the  remembered  farmsteads  where  the  rosy  country  cous 
ins  welcomed  us  with  old-time  cordiality. 

To  visit  the  ancestral  House,  now  long  passed  from 
the  possession  of  the  family,  was  to  awaken  recollections 
that  had  slumbered  nigh  a  score  of  years.  Here  it  \vas 
the  same  and  not  the  same.  The  old  Mansion  beside  the 
lane  was  serene  and  cool  and  peaceful  as  of  yore,  though 
with  an  air  of  slow  ruin  about  its  ivied  gables  and  leaning 
pillars;  and  beyond  where  the  corridors  of  hollyhocks 
once  stood,  the  orchard  showed  the  familiar  apples  on 
many  a  drooping  bough.  But  where  were  the  straw  bee- 

[213] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


hives,  where  the  latticed  arbors,  and  where  the  winding 
walks  of  tan  bark  o'er  which  childish  feet  loved  to  pat 
ter?  And  the  mouldering  House, — like  a  ghostly  thing  it 
seemed  in  its  neglect  and  loneliness, — the  forms  of  be 
loved  ones  gone  from  its  portals  many  a  year ! 

"Oh,  none  but  Silence  and  the  Past  to  greet 
The  weary  heart  that  on  the  threshold  stands, 
Only  the  wind  to  answer  eager  feet, 
And  only  shades  to  touch  the  outstretched  hands! 
The  house  is  but  poor  Love's  neglected  grave, 
While  youne;  and  glad  and  bright  with  summer's  glow, 
Like  strange  sweet  spray  upon  Time's  beating  wave, 
Against  its  grief  the  happy  flowers  grow." 

And  in  the  old-fashioned  Garden  beyond  the  House, 
how  little  was  left  of  all  that  pristine  glow  and  fragrance 
and  sunny  charm !  No  poppies  now  flamed  there ;  no  cow 
slip  or  candytuft  bloomed,  no  harebell  or  peony;  no 
sweet-williams  in  bright  troops,  no  masses  of  scarlet  sage 
or  sweet  old  bergamot.  Yet  still  flourished  the  ancient 
althea,  in  whose  branches  the  thrush  used  to  pour  out 
his  heart;  and  its  red  flowers  were  redolent  of  lost 
days;  and  a  few  pungent  herbs  persisted  in  a  sheltered 
corner.  Yet  the  ragged-robins,  the  asters,  the  foxgloves, 
the  "sweet-peas  on  tiptoe  for  a  flight,"  the  marigolds  and 
lavender,  and  the  evening  primroses  that  used  to  "blossom 
with  a  silken  burst  of  sound,"  the  larkspurs  and  fairy-fine 
coreopsis,  the  heliotropes,  columbines  and  all  the  roses, — 
sweet-briar,  moss-rose,  old  Scotch  yellow  rose,  and  many 
another  of  the  "heart-desired  roses"  dear  to  our  grand 
mothers, — all  were  gone — all !  Only  a  wild  tangle  of 
morning-glories  rippling  o'er  the  hedge,  and  a  few  strag- 

[214] 


The  0 Id-Fashioned  Garden 

gling  balloon-vines,  remained  to  tell  of  the  primal  loveli 
ness  of  this  sweet  flowery  place  where  to-day  Melancholy 
and  Forgetfulness  brood  amid  phantoms  of  the  Past. 

Here  it  was  that,  like  Elia,  I  "a  lonely  child  wondered 
and  worshipped  everywhere,"  and  caught  a  little,  I  trust, 
of  the  "love  and  silence  and  admiration"  which  Elia  avers 
are  fed  by  the  solitude  of  childhood.  For  me  no  poppies 
or  peonies  were  ever  so  sumptuous,  no  hollyhocks  so  grace 
fully  tall,  no  marigolds  so  yellow,  no  pinks  so  spicy,  as 
those  that  grew  in  this  old,  old  Garden. 

"In  that  lost  world  of  sweet  and  fearful  joy 
Still   dwells  and  dreams  a  boy 
Dear  to  my  heart  as  some  wild  flower  of  song 
Heard  on  a  summer  night,  and  lost,  alas,  so  long!" 

I  was  too  young  then  to  know  the  poets, — to  read 
Herrick  here  among  the  golden  daffodils,  Marvell  or 
Keats  under  the  orchard  trees,  or  Fitzgerald's  Omar  in  the 
fragrant  rose-arbor.  But  is  there  a  page  of  these  lau 
reates  of  the  flowers  that  has  not  a  keener  savor  because 
of  the  remembrances  of  this  ancestral  Garden  arising  to 
illustrate  every  allusion  and  happy  picture? 

O  here  on  dreamy  August  afternoons 

Who  would  not  pore  on  Herrick's  golden  Book; 

And  here  among  the  Roses  that  are  June's, 
On  some  green  bench  within  a  leafy  nook, 

Where  rosy  petal-drift  might  strew  the  page, 

'Twere  sweet  to  read  the  pensive  numbers  of  old  Persia's 
Sage, 

[215] 


Brandy  wine  Day, 


Omar  Khayyam,  the  Wisest  of  the  Wise. 

Ah,  now  in  balmy  Naishapur  he  sleeps 
These  almost  thousand  years;  and  where  he  lies 

His  well-loved  Rose  each  spring  her  petals  weeps. 
Of  what  may  be  hereafter  no  man  knows,  — 
Then  let  us  live  to-day,  he  cried,  as  lives  the  lovely  Rose  ! 

This  old  Garden  was  like  Andrew  Marvell's,  —  it  had 
no  sun  dial  ;  there  were  only  the  morning-glories,  and  the 
four-o'clocks  and  the  evening  primroses,  to  suggest  the 
passing  of  the  day. 

"How  could  such  sweet  and  wholesome  hours 
Be   reckon'd,  but  with  herbs  and  flowers!" 

Yes,  here  was  lacking  the  sun  dial,  that  central  shrine 
of  a  Garden,  with  "the  simple  altar-like  structure  and  si 
lent  heart-language''  so  loved  of  Charles  Lamb.  Yet 
though  these  flowery  avenues  radiated  from  no  such  quaint 
recorder  of  the  lazy  hours  of  summer,  let  me  here  in 
vent,  as  for  an  imaginary  dial  in  this  Garden  of  beautiful 
memory,  this  motto,  — 


Wijatr'rr  rtttoarra 


are 
makr  tfy?in  tltgnr  ! 


[216] 


THE  GIFTS  OF  GOD 


SEPTEMBER  XVII 

I  SAW  a  woman  pale  with  care 
Beside  the  way; 

Wistful  of  face  she  wandered  there 
This  autumn  day. 

Her  thin  hands  held  blue  asters  blent 
With  goldenrod, 

And  so  I  knew  that  she  had  spent 
An  hour  with  God 

Among  the  fields;  that  she  had  come 
With  weary  feet 

Fleeing   her    poor   and    narrow   home 
To  walk  the  sweet 

Uncrowded,  pure,  clean  country  ways, 
And  for  an  hour 
Find  respite  from  unresting  days, 
With  bird  and   flower. 

Alas!  how  many  souls  like  thine, 
Unhappy  thralls, 
Do  poverty  and  need  confine 
In  city  walls! 

Ah,  not  for  them  night's  mystery 
And  odorous  dark, 
Nor  the  enchanted   piping  free 
Of  dawn's  first  lark; 

[217] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


For  them  no  image  deep  and  soft 
In  tranquil  stream, 
Of  great  cloud-islands  far  aloft 
That  drift  and  dream. 

The  chiming  frog,  the  wood-thrush  sweet, 
The  sad  rain-crow, 
The  harvest  songs  among  the  wheat, 
They  may  not  know. 

They  may  not  look  day  after  day 
On  falling  leaf, 

As  pensive  Autumn  pines  away 
In  golden  grief. 

Nay,  these  poor  souls  all  closely  pent 

'Mid  dust  and  heat 

Of  dark  and  grimy  tenement 

And  sordid  street, 

Must  count  one  day  'mid  orchard  slopes 
And  by  calm  streams 
Fulfilment  of  their  fondest  hopes 
And  cherished  dreams. 

But  we  who  share  each  day  and  hour 
These  gifts  of  God — 
River  and  wood  and  cloud  and  flower 
And  emerald  sod — 

Do  we  by  reverence  aright 
Make  these  our  own? 
Or,  careless,  shut  them  from  our  sight 
With  hearts  of  stone? 
[218] 


AUTUMN  SILENCE 


SEPTEMBER  XVIII 

QO  sound  is  heard ;  green  Newlin's  fields  are  still  ; 
No  more  we  hear  the  wood-dove's  pensive  cry; 
Without  a  twitter  now  the  swallows  fly. 
Silent  the  dreamy  w7oods  above  the  mill; 
Silent  the  drowsy  air  of  Slumberville  ; 

Silent  the  sights  that  meet  the  musing  eye, 
One  lonely  buzzard  climbing  the  clear  sky 
And  great  cloud-shadows  moving  up  the  hill. 

No  sound  is  heard:  the  sleepy  Brandywine 

Scarce  whispers  as  it  laps  its  lazy  reeds 
Or  drifts  where  yon  late-lingering  daisies  shine. 

The  air  is  spiced  with  smoke  of  burning  weeds, 
And  o'er  the  fields  where  feed  the  peaceful  kine 

Slo\v  sail  the  thistle's  filmy  silver  seeds. 


[219] 


A  CELTIC  POET 


"The  wail  of  Irish  winds, 

The  cry  of  Irish  seas; 
Eternal  sorrow  finds 

Eternal  voice  in   these." 

'EPTEMBER  XIX.  I  have  been  re-reading  the 
wistful  and  beautiful  verse  of  Lionel  Johnson,  for, 
with  the  revival  of  our  sympathy  for  Ireland's 
sorrows,  have  come  the  tidings  of  the  death  of  a  poet  who 
was  passionately  devoted  to  the  woful  land  of  his  fathers. 
And  his  poetry,  ever  shadowed  with  twilight  melancholy 
and  mournful  dignity,  makes  illustrious  the  best  years  of 
his  manhood. 

I  remember  the  thrill  that  came  with  the  first  reading 
of  his  distinguished  and  original  verse  in  his  poems  of 
1895,  so  filled  with  old  magic  and  haunting  charm,  through 
which  sounded  a  high  spiritual  challenge  as  from  one  who 
had  brooded  long  on  Plato's  "starry  music,"  and  the  mys 
teries  of  the  mediaeval  Catholicism.  And  I  recall  the  en 
thusiasm  with  which  Louise  Imogen  Guiney  spoke  of  that 
volume — she  who  among  our  American  singers  has  the 
Celtic  spirit  in  largest  measure. 

Mystic  the  poetry  of  Lionel  Johnson  is,  at  times,  but 
not  with  the  elfin  mystery  of  Yeats,  enamored  as  he  is 
of  a  loveliness  that  is  fast  passing  from  even  the  charmed 
raths  and  quickenboughs  of  the  ancient  shee.  Yeats  and 
Nora  Hopper  and  the  others  thrill  to  those  vanishing 
voices  that 

[220] 


A  Celtic  Poet 

"Wake   old   harps   from   silence 
To  wail  for  days  of  Fionn." 

They  have  that  "gift  of  rendering  with  wonderful  fe 
licity  the  magical  charm  of  nature,"  of  which  Matthew 
Arnold  spoke — of  portraying  "the  intimate  life  of  nature, 
her  wTeird  power  and  her  fairy  charm." 

Lionel  Johnson  was  as  Celtic  as  they,  but  in  a  graver 
fashion.  He  seemed  a  new  Merlin — there  was  a  druidic 
quality  in  his  reverence  and  his  worship  of  the  strange 
hidden  powers  of  the  world  of  enchantment;  he  was  a 
dreamer  pondering  on  the  inner  significance  of  things. 
There  seemed  no  place  in  his  vision  for  even  that  eerie 
and  childlike  humor  that  plays  half  wistfully  over  the 
lyrics  of  his  fellows  of  the  Celtic  school.  Not  the  intimate, 
delicate  personality  of  the  fairy  people  fascinated  him  ; 
he  rather  beheld  Ireland  as  a  whole,  sweeping  into  his 
pictures  a  train  of  thought  stately  with  images  and  music 
and  magic.  Thus  he  wrote  to  her: 

"Great   spirits    ride    thy    winds;    thy   ways 

Are  haunted  and  enchaunted  evermore. 
Thy  children  hear  the  voices  of  old  days 

In  music  of  the  sea  upon  thy  shore, 
In  falling  of  the  waters  from  thine  hills, 

In  whispers  of  thy  trees: 
A  glory  from  the  things  eternal  fills 

Their  eyes,  and  at  high  noon  thy  people  sees 
Visions,  and  wonderful  is  all  the  air. 

So  upon  earth  they  share 
Eternity;   they  learn   it  at  thy  knees." 

This  poet,  then,  was  the  very  reverse  of  Kipling;  he 
found  his  themes  in  the  holy  musings  of  an  elder  race,  m  the 

[221] 


Brandy  wine  Day. 


imaginings  of  old  Druid  bards.  Materialism  and  rule  by 
force  were  alien  to  his  song.  The  soul  meant  everything 
to  him,  the  Maxim-gun  nothing. 

Like  Meleager  or  Theocritus  he  lived  apart  from 
the  land  of  his  inspiration,  for  he  was  born  in  Kent,  least 
Celtic  of  shires — though  he  was  of  Irish  descent — and 
made  his  home  in  London. 

"Three  names  mine  heart  with  rapture  hails, 
With  homage:  Ireland,   Cornwall,  Wales; 
Lands  of  lone  moor  and  mountain  gales, 
And  stormy  coast." 

All  the  haunts  of  ancient  Celtic  life  and  tradition  took 
his  fancy  and  held  him  in  spell — Tara  and  Inisfail,  Cly- 
wyd,  Gwynedd,  "Merioneth  over  the  sad  moor,"  "glit 
tering  Llanarmon,"  "desolate  Cornwall,  desolate  Britta 
ny."  But  most  his  heart  yearned  in  love  for  Ireland,  the 
"immemorial  Holy  Land,  mother  of  misericord," — 

"Lonely  and  loved,  O  passionate  land! 
Dear  Celtic  land,  unconquered  still !" 

where  the  people,  so  despised  by  the  sleek  disciples  of  Brit 
ish  imperialism, 

"have  no  care  for  meaner  things ; 
They  have  no  scorn  for  brooding  dreams: 
A  spirit  in  them  sings, 
A  light  about  them  beams." 

Another  group  of  Johnson's  poems  concerns  the  joys 
of  culture,  celebrating  the  dear  seclusion  of  the  Oxford 
where  the  poet  spent  his  bright  youth, — 

"City  of  weathered  cloister  and  worn  court 
Gray  city  of  strong  towers   and  clustering  spires." 

[222] 


A  Celtic  Poet 


The  cedarn  chapels  and  their  purple  gloom,  the  cool 
pavements,  the  chime  of  full,  sad  bells,  Arnold's  hills  and 
sweet  June  meadows — these  and  many  another  charm  he 
sings  in 

"Those  high  places,  that  are  Beauty's   home; 
The  city,  where  the  Muses  all  have  sung." 

Very  wide  were  this  poet's  interests.  His  passionate 
lyric  to  Parnell,  from  which  I  have  taken  the  stanza  at 
the  head  of  this  paper,  may  be  contrasted  with  the  strong 
poem  to  Croirrwell.  In  these  words  can  a  Cavalier  greet 
forgivingly  the  shade  of  the  great  and  grave  Puritan, — 

"Tragic,  triumphant  form, 

He  comes  to  your  dim  ways, 
Comes  upon   wings  of  storm ; 

Greet  him  with  pardoning  praise, 

With  marveling  awe,  with  equal   gaze." 

But  with  all  his  celebration  of  Winchester  and  Eton 
and  storied  Oxford,  the  love  of  books  and  of  art,  the 
man  spoke  out  of  his  truest  self  when  Ireland  and  the 
wild,  strange  Celtic  glories  stirred  his  muse.  He  refined 
his  art  with  the  golden  beauty  of  Hellenic  philosophy;  and 
he  meditated  upon  the  grandeur  and  processional  spectacle 
of  Roman  history;  but  the  land  of  his  heart's  delight  held 
him  in  thrall  from  first  to  last.  In  solemn  and  devout 
measures  of  haunting  and  pensive  melody  he  chanted  again 
and  again  the  mystery  and  glamor  of  the  far  Gaelic  days, 
and  in  prophetic  voice  foretold  the  ultimate  triumph  of 
Celtic  holiness  and  spirituality  over  the  materialism  and 
imperalism  of  to-day. 

His  poem,  "Celtic  Speech,"  his  long  dithyramb  "Ire- 

[223] 


Brandy  wine  Days 


land,"  with  its  "heart  of  melancholy,"  his  "Gwynedd," 
are  bathed  with  the  very  atmosphere  of  the  wild  wizard 
Gaelic.  Ireland  has  indeed  lost  a  knight  of  pure  soul  and 
great  hope.  Other  Celtic  poets  remain,  but  none  in  whom 
the  spirit  of  the  ancient  bards  and  Druids  lived  as  it  lived 
in  Lionel  Johnson. 

"Magnificence  and  grace, 

Excellent  courtesy; 
A  brightness  in  the  face, 
Airs  of  high  memory; 

Whence  came  all  these  to  such  as  he? 

****** 

Now,  when  sad  night  draws  down, 

When   the    austere   stars   burn ; 
Roaming  the  vast  live  town, 

My  thoughts  and  memories  yearn 
Toward  him,  who  never  will  return." 


[224] 


CECILY 


SEPTEMBER  XX 


GECILY,  daughter  of  dreams, 
Sister  of  flowers  and  birds, 
What  do  the  wind-voices  sing 
To  thy  spirit  musing  apart 
Far  in  the  Brandywine  hills? 
What  do  the  waterfalls  sing 
Tumbling  over  cool  rocks 
In  ferny  and  shadowy  dales? 

O  miss  not  the  message  they  bear, 

Voices  primeval  and  sweet, 

That  speak  unto  those  who  will  hear, 

And  feed  with  their  magical  song 

Hearts  that  are  tuned  to  their  hearts, — 

Cecily,  daughter  of  dreams, 

Sister  of  flowers  and  birds. 


[225] 


THE  SAGE  OF  MARSHALLTON  AGAIN 

EPTEMBER  XXI.  In  examining  the  letters  of 
the  good  Quaker,  Doctor  Fothergill,  despatched 
from  England  to  Humphry  Marshall  in  the  Ches 
ter  County  hamlet  near  the  Brandywine,  one  finds  that 
the  Londoner's  chief  desiderata  were  such  American  plants 
as  Magnolias,  Rhododendrons,  Kalmias,  Water-lilies, 
Acorns,  "the  Fern  tribe  (a  most  pleasing  part  of  the  crea 
tion)  ;"  and  Goldenrods,  Asters  and  Sunflowers,  of  which 
he  writes,  "you  have  more  than  all  the  world  besides." 

In  return  for  the  carefully-selected  boxes  of  seeds  and 
young  plants  sent  over  to  England  by  Humphry  Mar 
shall,  Dr.  Fothergill  presented  our  Quaker  worthy  with 
William  Penn's  Works,  translations  of  Linnasus,  garden 
ers'  dictionaries,  and  the  roots  of  the  Alpine  Strawberry. 
In  June  of  1774  the  doctor  writes,  "I  am  reckoned  to  have 
the  best  collection  of  North  American  Plants  of  any  pri 
vate  person  in  the  neighborhood.  I  am  obliged  to  thee  for 
many  of  them."  And  in  his  last  letter  of  all,  on  the  eve  of 
the  American  Revolution,  whose  approach  he  keenly  la 
mented,  Dr.  Fothergill  writes  to  his  faithful  friend  in  the 
colonies:  "My  garden  is  about  five  miles  from  London, 
warm  and  sheltered,  rather  moist  than  dry;  and  I  have 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  all  North  American  plants  pros 
per  amazingly."  One  may  easily  imagine  Marshall's  con 
tentment  in  reading  these  epistles  beside  his  hearth  in  this 
gray  mansion,  or  in  these  shady  avenues  of  evergreen,  in 
the  Brandywine  hills. 

In  this  collected  correspondence  of  the  sage  of  Mar- 
[226] 


The  Sage  of  Marshallton  Again 

shallton  are  letters  to  and  from  various  worthies  of  the 
day,  Benjamin  Franklin  among  them ;  and  all  these  letters 
breathe  the  peacefulness  of  kindly  friendships  formed 
through  common  devotion  to  the  gentlest  of  the  natural 
sciences. 

Whether  or  not  Humphry  Marshall  was  wont  to  come 
dowrn  to  the  Brandywine  hereabouts,  to  fish  and  meditate, 
I  know  not;  surely  his  tranquil  tastes  would  have  fitted 
him  to  be  a  "brother  of  the  angle."  His  sympathetic  biog 
rapher  closes  his  account  of  our  rural  sage  by  recording 
with  satisfaction  the  resolution  of  the  Town  Council  of 
West  Chester,  whereby  the  little  borough  park  was  desig 
nated  for  all  time  as  "The  Marshall  Square,"  in  commem 
oration  of  Humphry  Marshall,  "one  of  the  earliest  and 
most  distinguished  horticulturalists  and  botanists  of  our 
country,  having  established  the  second  botanic  garden  in 
this  republic;  and  also  prepared  and  published  the  first 
treatise  on  the  forest  trees  and  shrubs  of  the  United 
States,  and  diffused  a  taste  for  botanical  science  which  en 
titles  his  memory  to  the  lasting  respect  of  his  country 
men." 


[227] 


FAREWELL  TO  THE  FARM 

SEPTEMBER  XXII 

SAID  farewell  unto  our  pensive  Stream, 
And  the  old  farmstead  wrapt  in  autumn's  dream, 

Farewell  unto  the  village  and  the  mill 

And  dark  mill-race  that  winds  below  the  hill; 

Farewell  unto  the  cattle  feeding  slow 
Where  hoary  willows  stand  in  silent  row; 

Farewell  to  kindly  neighbors,  and  farewell 
To  these  old  fields  I  long  have  loved  so  well; 

Farewell,  each  haunt  among  these  hillsides  dear, — 
God  grant  I  come  to  you  another  year! 


[228] 


A     000138717     4 


